James Ballantyne

Tag: Childhood Abuse

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 30) What 9 year old me had to Become

    So, I didn’t commit suicide aged 9. But everything was pretty dark.

    I survived to tell the tale.

    To tell my story

    To be my story.

    What did I do?

    Age 9, in those dark moments?

    At the time, I remember thinking that something didn’t sit right.

    That something was that however ‘normal’ I was being told my family was. It wasn’t good. Something didnt stack up.

    As well as an internal voice that did often tell myself that I wasnt anywhere as bad as I was being told I was – I was punished for far less than my friends were telling me they were – I also started to be affirmed by firstly teachers and then other adults – I began to assess that the voice of the toxic one might need to be listened to,

    but it didnt need to be believed.

    I wouldn’t say that id worked out that the problems that they said I was was their problem, thats too far – but certainly began to realise that the toxic voice didnt need to be believed.

    Read my previous post on ‘Survival Self-talk‘ here

    I think I did then realise that I had to do life alone, and with the positive support of my year 4-5-6 teachers (Mrs Prowse, Mr Poole and Mrs Smyton, at Little Bowden Primary school) I began to believe that I was clever, in an academic way, and had other qualities too, like listening to people and being able to be responsible. I was also sporty – winning cross country races and playing for the school football team, and it was sports that I developed more in the next few years too.

    Heres me aged 9 – 1987

    My grandparents took this photo, its obvious, im smiling – and i’m near trains…

    That combination intelligence and responsibility took me to do a number of things – one was to dedicate myself more fully to the church I grew up in – a place that was getting safer, as my parents left it when I was about 12-13, but from 11-12 I was helping in the Sunday school and doing practical things like setting up the chairs and the youth club. Oh by the way, the kid who stays back and puts the chairs away to be helpful every time… doesn’t want to go home – find out why….

    Without realising it, or maybe realising it was the place of the role I was in – with that responsibility, intelligence and desire to fix the thing I knew was broken – is that I became a bit like a mini priest or psychologist – trying to work them out, trying to work out how and why my parents got to be like it – trying to also navigate my own safety through it, but also making the suggestions or assertions to improve things; ‘Maybe we should go out for a meal’ (other families do that, we should) , ‘What about a movie night, or take away’ ‘what if we prayed together as a family’ ‘lets play a board game’ …. I remember also praying for my grandparents – thinking this was the thing I needed to do, to help them….

    Somehow believing that I could fix, something I couldn’t then understand – or even do something to make something happier than the normal constant eggshells.

    This, more often than not, was me suggesting these things, and guess who got grumpy at the thought of them – who would belittle, or patronise these suggestions? Agreed… But this became part of my role in the space of having no nurturing, growing up fast, growing up responsible.

    I realise that I couldn’t rely on the parents, it was now going to me getting on with my life. Once I got more and more freedom (a bike), and a job (a paper round aged 13) , access to learning at the school (libraries) and teachers who helped – I needed them less and less.

    I was wanting to do psychology A level when I was 16, my school didnt offer it. But that was no surprise, not to me now. Id studied human behaviour since I was born, never able to relax, trying to navigate the emotional blows and not give my abusive parent what they wanted, and stay sane and safe.

    I survived an emotionally abusive home by gradually realising more and more that I was less of the problem.

    That parent was good though, because the times I started to believe her less and back off, not trusting her even as a child with telling her things, she’d often come out with the line, ‘Dont you believe the gossip other people say about me‘ . How confusing was this to an 11 or 12 year old, parents dont lie do they? So everyone else is invalid, and whats a child going to say then – ‘No of course not mum’ especially while I’m in the house. The gossip was true though, and I knew it. Thats the thing, I learned to pretend.

    On pretending and hiding – this is here

    Maybe it didnt become a surprise that I became a youth worker, interested in psychology and now training to be a therapist. Not a surprise that my primary school teacher said that I was perceptive, from the age of 6. The magical or desperate ending didnt happen at the age of 9, I just had to work out how to deal with what I was being told, or not told, create distance from it, accept the positives elsewhere, and survive.

    Survive, so that 35 years later I am here sharing my story. Sharing a story of how emotional abuse nearly killed me. How a psychopathic woman destroyed a family and abused many around her. Survive, and now thrive, see and get close to the damage of childhood, get close to the child I left behind, get close to the child that was scared and frightened, and live closer to my core. There may not have been a magical escape, just seriously hard emotional work – but 35 years on im sharing my story, in a safe, happy, loving place – not afraid of the demons within, and taking the time to love the James who had to deal with so much in the only ways he could.

    Thank you for reading.

  • 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.

  • Wounds like Eyes

    If the process of healing is like an onion

    One layer of tears at a time
    One more step towards the core

    Then wounds are like eyes

    They hurt when stung

    They are the raw, vulnerable awakening

    Of pain needing more work

    Raw exposed and seen

    Wound of black hurt

    The pupil, the dark eye in the middle

    A wound of pain surrounded by levels of anger, grief, torment, fear and betrayal

    Like an eye

    Today has been a wound day, completely unexpectedly

    A trigger went deep

    Rawness to the surface

    Yet it helped me to see

    To look at the pain again

    And see, that I am not the pain

    That i am powerful

    That I am safe

    That I am loved

    And I am not in that place

    Somehow for me, wounds help me to see

    Help me to feel, a reminder to continue to be the new me

    Wounds help me to see

    See me for me now

    See what I need

    Wounds like eyes.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 7): Why I have to thank Roald Dahl (but didn’t realise until last week)

    I was wondering a few months ago about whether there was any children story books written to help them see what domestic violence looks like, when it is against them, and by their parents. In Lindsay Gibsons book she refers to the many children stories of old that regail of how children survive and thrive, win and adventure without the help of parents, or against the abuse by ‘step’ parents, and you’ll know the Disney ones I mean. At the time I was reading, and am still reading Harry Potter, and though he is extremely abused by his adoptive Guardians, and is full of recollected grief for his own parents, he was not abused by them.

    What I realised two weeks ago was that I knew of the book.

    What I realised two weeks, minus 1 day ago, is that I knew of the book, because I had the book.

    What I realised two weeks, minus one day go, is that I read the book that includes many elements of the behaviour of my psychopathic/emotionally immature parents in it, whilst I was as child.

    Im sure there are other books out there, but the realisation that I not only had the book, read the book, I also loved the book, and I somehow even then saw something in me in the main character, whilst not completely seeing the extent to which the abuse she encountered at the time. But then again, my brain was probably doing its protective thing and not seeing it.

    So reading it again and Im seeing:

    At this point ______ entered the room. He was incapable of entering any room quietly, he always had to make his presence felt immediately by creating a lot of noise and clatter. One could almost hear him saying ‘Its me, Here I come, the great man himself, the master of the house, the wage earner…

    From the main characters Parents.

    When confronted by the Parents, the teacher has to develop all the required tools to deal with narcissism, like not using anger, staying cool, being firm, creating boundaries and not rising to their bait. It was amazing to read in a childrens book, all the techniques I’ve had to read in self help books on this (see the resources in the menu above).

    By now, youve probably worked out the book, its Matilda, by Roald Dahl, published in 1988.Matilda (novel) - Wikipedia

    Later after we have encountered the head teacher at Matildas school, Miss Trunchbull, we see that in the words of a 5 year old child, we see emotional intelligence and perception so beyond her years, and in Matildas words, the pattern of the entitled , narcissist is revealed. After an incident in which the Trunchbull throws a girl in pigtails, by the pigtails over the school fence, there is this conversation;

    How can she get away with it? Lavender said to Matilda ‘Surely the children go home and tell their mothers and fathers.I know my father would raise a terrific stink if I told him the headmistress had grabbed me by the hair and slung me over the fence’

    No, he wouldn’t  Said Matilda, ‘and ill tell you why..he simply wouldn’t believe you’

    ‘Of Course he would’ , Said Lavender

    ‘He wouldn’t ‘ Matilda said, And the reason is obvious. Your story would sound too ridiculous to be believed. And that is there Trunchbulls great secret

    ‘What is’ ,  Said Lavender.

    ‘Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is completely crazy its unbelievable. No parent is going to believe this pigtail story, not in a million years, Mine wouldn’t they’d call me a liar’

    Now obviously Matildas parents don’t see her, and view her merely as a scab (Page 2), but from her own words (or Dahls) we see the pattern of the self obsessed narcissistic parent, in the Trunchbull. The one who has no regard for the rules, for social rules of dignity and decency, of the human condition of the other. They are the law unto themselves. Doing actions so shocking, that evoke stunned trauma, and disbelief. That is the pattern of one of my parents.

    So why didn’t I see it? Maybe I did. Maybe I also saw what I had to do.

    As you may know Matilds draws on her inner guile, magic, knowledge and self to survive. I wonder how much this book, reading it at age 10 had on me at the time, subliminally, she was stuck between abusive parents and headteacher, and yet emerged with her own sense of self, and with one supportive adult that gave her the emotional space she needed to thrive, but also knowing she had to take responsibility for herself, because it wasn’t going to be from elsewhere.

    But if you want to see how to respond to entitlement, narcissism, and abusive adults, and educate and help children see it, then in my opinion you could do alot worse than use Matilda as an example. 30 years on, and I cant quite believe how accurate its descriptions are of behaviour I have witnessed in my whole life. Maybe the magic of Roald Dahl, for me was that he showed the ways of survival and also patterns of behaviour to the child.

    Yes Matilda had the help of some significant miracles to combat the Trunchbull in the heat of the storm, and get justice, and overcome her Parents, but so much else was about the inner strength and responsibility she took for her own life, being generally kind, grounded and diligent, and also having one trusting, supportive adult who also saw her, believed in her and gave her time.

    So yes, I have Roald Dahl to thank, because he gave me a hero that survived and thrived in the midst of the most emotionally toxic situations, and even though I didnt ‘see’ it at the time, obviously something completely resonated.

    Thank you for reading, this is part 7 of my Survivor Story, if you’d like to read from the beginning part 1 is here and the rest of the parts are in the menu above.