James Ballantyne

Tag: Emotional abuse

  • Permission to be Happy

    Yesterday I wrote about learning the choice to be Happy.

    What I realise today is that there’s something else.

    Being Happy requires safety.

    Its easy to be moany, negative, critical,

    easy to be unhappy, easy to be numb

    easy to hide feelings even.

    When I was these things I was easy to manipulate.

    Easy to sink into the swamp.

    Easy to be abused.

    Easy to stay in the fight for the others, and be unknowingly co-dependent with it.

    Why would I want other people to be happy, if I had barely a concept of it.. maybe I wanted people to need me….

    Happiness wasn’t a dream for me – I numbed emotions

    Happiness wasn’t even a ‘concept’ I could conceive for myself. Not deep down.

    Reality was that for 40 years I’d lived with people who didnt want me to be happy. (they weren’t Happy themselves…)

    So why even chase it, easier to theorise or criticise the notion of it.

    Being Happy for me, required safety.

    Actually.

    It required permission.

    Specifically, I needed to hear and accept the possibility that I could actually be happy.

    It was one of my friends who said to me; ‘James, When are you going to be Happy?’ but not in that critical way, more in a ‘James – when are you going to consider that you could be happy and that being happy is ok and safe to be‘ kind of way.

    James…. Its ok… you can be Happy….

    I needed permission, and safety, and the opening of a possibility that I could feel such things, or live in a way that was about happiness.

    And my mind raged with it.

    Because, my happiness was selfish – id been told, My needs weren’t important – id been told, other peoples happiness was more important than my own – id been told , happiness is for an ‘eternal life’ – id been told, happiness was shallow – id been told…. all the messages..and others besides.

    I could easily overthink being happy and drag myself into that thinking space.

    So I needed permission to be Happy.

    Safe, brave, permission.

    Permission to begin the process of searching, seeking and feeling Happy.

    Even from in the midst of controlling relationships that had another few years to be dealt with. Not before. But in the midst.

    It wasn’t that ‘when id sorted everything id be happy’ – because that was a lie. It was that in the beginning of being happy, or that the potential removal of unhappiness was possible even at that point. It was on the table.

    Choosing to be… happy…in the midst of abuse and oppression is likely to challenge…. as the oppressor is losing control. Dancing in the metaphorical fucking rain.

    Even beginning to realise that happiness was possible, and having the courage and safety to permit myself to it, invoked a glimpse of lightness, of happiness in itself. I stepped a tiny bit, another tiny bit, out of the leadened swamp.

    So as I shared my learning yesterday, and awareness of the choice of my emotional awareness, one small step at a time, I realised that my awakening to happiness personally was about permission giving, about possibility, and about safety. I had received in so many ways the kindness of the universe through a breakdown and rebuild, yet that rebuild would not be full until I could see the lights above and know and feel that these could be true for me too.

    Today, 4 years on I can give myself permission to be happy. What I needed the first time was the safe permission from others.

    I can be happy, and so can you.

    It is possible and permissible Now.

    It might take courage….

  • My healing started the day I realised that my mother is a narcissist.

    Sometimes days have a special significance dont they. I remember clearly the day I got my A level results, the days when my children were born, days of celebration, and where I was when I heard significant news, like my grandparents deaths. Positively recently I remember so much about the day of my wedding with Christelle (it wasn’t that long ago)

    But there is one other day in my life that had a significant impact upon my life… it was the day I realised what narcissism is, and the extent to which my mother is one.

    There is a slight blurring to this story, however, is that in 2006 I was reading a paper whilst I was doing my Youth work and Theology degree at ICC, Glasgow which described the difference between listening with a young person with empathy, and taking a story that a young person shares and using it to launch into your own, this was described as being narcissistic. That was the first time I had heard this word. I did also underline the word on the paper and write in the margin ‘Remind me of anyone’ . A seed had been sown.

    The other blurring in the clarity is that it was only a few years later in 2008 when fairly serious incidents that revealed this behaviour. The fall out from this was that ‘nothing changed’ or responsibility was taken. But at that time I didnt equate or delve into what narcissist behaviour was, was just in a swirl of denials.

    Anyway, back to the story, rather than the pre amble.

    I was in a cafe just outside Durham with one of my best friends, it was just after Christmas, the day after Boxing Day, 4 years ago. I was recounting how the few days of Christmas had gone, as there was a lot of tension around the family home at the time. For some reason the subject came up that I hadn’t spent time with my parents or spoken to them over the Christmas time, and I said something about how weird they were.

    My friend asked me whether I thought, no actually she said, ‘Your Mother is a narcissist isn’t she?’

    I may have done my usual and passed this off, or said ‘yeah I know’ or something like that. I didnt know, or didnt realise the extent to which this truth had affected my entire life, or would be part of what my life recovery would take.

    I knew that she was difficult. I knew that she sucked the life out of every room. I knew that she was emotionally unstable. I knew that also she had the capacity to upset everyone. I knew that she didnt listen.

    But a Narcissist? What’s that ?

    What I hadn’t done until that point was begin the process of doing the work.

    Firstly of recognising the problem. Secondly of releasing myself from the responsibility of the problem and changing myself. Thirdly of naming it. Fourthly and this is the ongoing bit – of realising the extent to which I have ongoing recovery to do because of the deep personality issues that dominated my childhood.

    None of this could be done until I had the space to see it.

    And I could only see it when someone who had experience of it could identify it.

    My friend recommended to me the ‘pink book’.

    This book:

    Link here if you would like to buy a copy

    A week later the book arrived as I received a copy.

    In it Nina describes the characteristics of healthy parents (none of which I could recognise) and then 4 types of Self Absorbed Parents, 3 of which I could identify in mother, but definitely strongly one of them.

    Though the book didnt stop there.

    Nina described the way in which I had reacted and responded to my parents, and my own self destructive, self limiting responses to them – to either pacify, soothe or avoid – also flight, or fight/anger responses. She went on to describe how to protect the self, in the midst of the narcissistic interaction, and afterwards. There’s also coping strategies for each type of parent.

    This was my first ‘self help’ book I had read.

    It was like scales and weights falling, as I could see clearly for the first time the extent of what I had tried to cope with, alone, and also how I had reduced myself in the process, of 40 years, yet at the same done what I thought I should do for my own survival.

    I thought that the stuff I suffered with my mother were impossible to describe, too weird, too crazy to recognise, yet this book described my experiences. It describes what emotional control, abuse, belligerence and victim playing looks like. And I had experienced it all.

    I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t the only one.

    That was so important.

    And if this might be you, know that you aren’t alone either.

    I confess to not doing all of the exercises in Nina’s book, the scoring charts in the beginning were enough for me to be able to do some accurate identification.

    But It wasn’t that I now had someone to blame. It wasn’t that I now took this information and stereotypically ‘blamed my childhood’ , and I hope that from what ive ever written on this blog I haven’t done that, I certainly haven’t tried to. What the information did for me was to help me see who I was, how I coped and survived, and what I now needed to do, and how I had been affected by it.

    The important thing was that it was that I could let go of things I had felt responsible for.

    And four years later, can feel more compassionate about my child James, teenage James and mid twenties and thirties James – who was trying to do life with a void, a void that had had things taken.

    And now I knew. I had avoided wanting to know, feeling the pain to be too great, even though a number of people had been trying to tell me, I hadn’t listened, not fully.

    Part of my healing journey, was the day I realised that my mother was a narcissist. There were other significant moments, but this was definitely one of them.

    Thank you for reading, if there’s something in this that you resonate with, do seek out professional help and therapy if you can, acknowledging this is a first step, making a move of self love to begin a healing journey is courageous and beautiful. I have other resources in the menu above including other books, and there’s a lot on you tube on responding to narcissism. Know that its time. Today is a good first day to start to recover and heal from this.

  • Vulnerability; The Surprising Path to Spiritual Growth

    Vulnerability; The Surprising Path to Spiritual Growth

    I written before that being involved in church as a teenager was a ‘safe place’ for me. It was a place to develop a bit of an identity, a space to have some importance – I was a junior leader, I was in the music group, I was part of the ‘Mens group’ from 18 for about 6 months, and after then was a leader in church things, team leader on a frontline team, youth leader in a church. Church meant involvement, and from about the age of 18 it was a place for me where I had some respect, importance. It was a place where I had responsibility.

    Psychologically it was the place, one of many, that as a younger child, my ‘adaptive’ child took precedence. I adapted into the adult world of the local church, was a leader, even in the youth group, and had some kind of status. This isn’t and wasn’t new by any stretch of the imagination. It happens a lot. The most significant thing for me was that it was a space where my parents left from me being around 13 years old. So it immediately became safer for me, and only their torpid residue still hung on, like tentacles of time.

    My role in churches, whether youth worker, leader or in ecumenical groups or denominations was exactly what the 20-30’s me required. Churches in which I kept some emotional distance (because I was an employee in many cases) , and could be important and useful, through either a paid role or voluntary ones involving music, young people or just by being a thoughtful, critical person who could preach or lead services even now and then.

    ADAPTED JAMES was in his element.

    The Shield.

    Wounded interior hiding behind a hard shell. Back turned.

    Oh and it was so easy.

    Adapt to rules, expectation and performance

    What I mean is, that it was so easy for me to exist in this way.

    Nothing in main could get close, because academic critical head of mine would question, criticism or cynicism it away.

    By the way that’s when I know I’m not feeling safe. I can tell.

    But then I could keep all the barriers up.

    I could hide the wounds behind the active mind. I didn’t have to be. To be honest, I didnt know, that I wasnt ‘being’ I was just aware that I wasnt alive. Not fully.

    Church was a place where I could easily hide. Keep up the appearances. Easy to keep masks on when no one else is asking that question, and if they did I would run and hide.

    Hiding behind responsibility, Hiding behind intelligence, Emotions left outside, Emotions no where.

    Though I wouldn’t have admitted it, at the time, I had tied myself into the expectations of the identity of ‘going to church’, and it helped me in some ways to have some parts of my ego massaged with some importance and influence, but I didnt want to get close. And for a number of years I didnt know why.

    I couldn’t emotionally invest myself in church. I needed it for my sake. Aside from frustrations I had no emotion to give at times. I had a head faith. But a head full of doubts. But not a heart faith – because actually that heart was well and truly hidden. And only, only on rare occasions did anything get through – especially in a church situation.

    I used to criticise people in churches for not being real and vulnerable – when that was me – I just lacked any awareness to know it.

    Projection as a defence mechanism, I shudder with my own embarrassment.

    What provoked all flow of thinking you might ask?

    I think, actually, no, I feel and beginning to know, that part of the healing journey I have been on in the last 3-4 years has been emotional, it has also been spiritual, and this has affected how I have interacted with the formative faith of my up to 40 year old self. I would say I have had more spiritual experiences since undergoing therapy than any time before. Through times when I have felt the most broken and confused, damaged and lost and also times when I have recognised my need to love myself – and to sense the spirituality and consciousness within myself. Its a journey that has taken me to Eckhart Tolle, to Karen Armstrong, to Gary Zukav, Irvin Yalom, Paulo Coelho, Richard Rohr, Victor Frankl and Haemin Sunim, and many others, as I continually discover the universe as a spiritual being, and the spiritual being deep inside of me, and spirituality of my body – the feelings and emotions. Holding in balance a spirituality that includes myself, God, creation and the other, and not denying the very heart and soul of myself – for the sake of the other.

    But what I read today was the thing to which so much of my spiritual and religious life made some sense, and for that I hand the end of this blog over the the wonderful Brene Brown.

    When religious leaders leverage our fear and need for more certainty by extracting vulnerability from spirituality and turning faith into ‘compliance and consequences’ rather than teaching and modelling how to wrestle with the unknown and to embrace mystery, the entire concept of faith is bankrupt on its own terms. …

    (Brene Brown, Daring Greatly) going on to say….

    I needed Church and I thought church needed me.

    I left my own vulnerability at the front door. It was barely on the same street to be honest.

    Performance, expectation and compliance was my safe place.

    I know I did this, but how common is it? What is the cost in ministry terms when vulnerability isnt culturally valued? Thats a question others can answer…

    Thanks Brene, for helping me see, again, and be grateful for the journey I have been on, grateful for the churches and groups who hosted and held me, who I kept at arms length and who I ran from when I got emotionally frightened. Thank you because you didnt know, and I didnt know what kind of emotional mess and what kind of emotional trauma I was and still carry. Thank you for doing your best, well most of you.

    Thank you more so for those who in more recent days have held my actual vulnerability as I have let you into the layers and I have found connection and warmth and life through this process, thank you.

    Thank you Brene too, for causing me to see the extent to which I was hiding and avoiding being vulnerable.

    Surprisingly Emotional Therapy has given me Spiritual Epiphanies. Learning to be vulnerable to myself, learning to uncover the hard shell and layers one by one, learning to be warm and loving to myself. To value the God within. To Value love as a feeling, myself as a human. To be. To be , from the inside out.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 34) I had Hope – The Countdown to the end was in sight.

    Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 34) I had Hope – The Countdown to the end was in sight.

    The Day I left my childhood home I was sick.

    I actually vomitted in the Midland Main line Intercity 125 Toilets from Market Harborough to Sheffield, before then boarding the Cross Country To Darlington, then two pacers from Darlington to Thornaby and Hartlepool, Sorry my train nerd distracted me there.

    It was August 1996, and I was sick.

    The train was on its way to Hartlepool for to start my gap year.

    For me it was the day I left home.

    Left what I couldn’t describe or articulate but had been a horror show of a childhood.

    The last straw of simmering fury, that I held in, had been my 18th Birthday. When I didn’t get the chance to do what I wanted to do, and in peace, (without them) without them interrupting what I wanted to do and spoiling it. March to August 1996 was 5 months, but the clock had started long before.

    The Clock had started when I was about 13 or 14, may even been earlier. But definitely by then.

    The great escape was a dim light on the horizon, a shard of yellow in the darkest of tunnels, but it was there. Freedom awaited.

    Only 4 more years, only 4 more school years, only 4 more football season years – and fortunately 1992-1996 were glorious for my team. So that was an emotional soother.

    Counting down the months, the years

    Every day , every month, every year – and they got quicker, the more I worked, saved, studied and was busy the day got closer.

    I also knew that I had to be independent from them completely. Too many stories about Parents bailing out their kids at Uni, student debt, I was alone, and had to be independent from them. So id saved up a lot.

    When there was an end date to it, there was hope.

    The light got bigger.

    Though I was in a situation of being trapped… I may have been accused of treating the home like a hotel – but at least I didnt run it like a prison. The date of escape was getting nearer and so was the light of freedom.

    That light was one of the things that kept me going.

    It gave me hope. It gave me a sense of future. It was escape. It was freedom.

    (It wasn’t the end, it wasnt dealing with all the shit of childhood, but I didnt know that then)

    The escape helped me survive, I have no doubt.

    The glimmer of distant escape was enough.

    Though it was bad, and I didn’t realise how bad. There was enough of a glimmer of light to know that I wasnt trapped.

    There was a countdown clock. I had set it too. At 18 1/2 I was out.

    It made it far easier to cope with the present – knowing there was a fixed point of an ending.

    I have just finished ‘Mans Search for Meaning’ by Victor Frankl. In it he writes about how not knowing about the date or time of release or freedom from the concentration camp was one of the hardest things. They just didnt know, so, time and days had so little meaning as there was no future to look forward too, only a past that has blurred endings and present of torture. Time was condensed. It was a ‘provisional existence’ . Once prisoners gave up on having faith in a future, they lost hope and fell into despair. He watched, the prisoners who started smoking were on the path to killing themselves, they had given up. It took a mental resolve, an inner strength to show up each day.

    I didnt know at the time how much having a known date of escape, of leaving home, gave me such strength and hope. Im not saying that the psychopathic parents didnt do what they could to ruin my plans, or manipulate those who were about to be my new employees and ministry leaders.

    But one of the reasons I survived was knowing there was a way out.

    Its no wonder that I was sick in the best of British rails Intercity 125’s toilets that Tuesday morning. It was 4 years of build up.

    I am so aware that the times in my life where I have felt a deeper sense of despair, a deeper sense of that swirl of black, hopelessness – has been when there hasn’t been a coherent sense of time – the feeling of being trapped, stuck and feeling like there was no way out. Trapped by expectations, trapped by shame, trapped by the thought of difficult processes to free myself, trapped because there didnt seem to be any way out, stuck.

    Provisional existence is a brilliant way of putting it. Knowing that there was an end in sight was such a construct of survival for me. It would end. It would be over. The day to day prison being ran by a psychopath was over and I was out.

    The only way, however, that I have got out of the stuck feeling, in the moments of real despair has been vulnerability.

    I had to say I needed help. I had to take a risk in talking to someone. I had to be vulnerable. I had to give someone else a tiny shard of responsibility when up until that moment I had held it all, and tried to cope all alone. It was and still is so important for me to have people around me to listen, support and give me the opportunity to share, reflect and give me some building blocks, coping mechanisms, therapy tools – whatever, to help me in the moments – and more importantly too, to give me perspectives. Give yourself the gift of time, a glimmer of the future, hold on to it, and know that you are stronger, more capable and more valuable a human being. The gift of future time.

  • Might the Emotionally Abusive treat pets like they do animals? (mine did)

    Narcissistic, sociopathic, psychopathic people dont see you.

    They just dont.

    They only see you as an extension of themselves

    Or as something to take from.

    A tool.

    You are their entitlement.

    Thats the humans. Or the items they see, that they take.

    But what about animals? The pets in the home?

    What happens when such a person also has a pet? or if there is one in the home?

    Research here indicates how pets are used as part of Domestic Abuse

    And here too

    They can be used as a way of keeping someone in a DV relationship, pets can be abused themselves.

    One of the ways that I have heard repeatedly is that physically violent people (often men) enact their physical violence out on their pet. The stats in this piece are frightening and awful.

    But I am wondering something else, something more subtle.

    How might the way an emotional or psychological abuser treat a pet be an indication of abuse?

    Can I tell you a short story please? About my psychopathic parent and what she could/couldnt do with animals?

    When I was about 4, for some reason, probably to be helpful, my parents decided to look after 4-5 3-4 month old kittens, whilst the owner was away open holiday I guess, but I cannot remember. In our old house my Dad was in the process of blocking off one of the old chimney breasts, the other was kept open for fires. But there was a large bricked hole in the wall which, with blankets, could act as a bed for the kittens, and could also be blocked off to keep them in there at night. If I remember too, the kittens were only allowed downstairs. I dont remember much about the stay of the kittens themselves. Only that in the last 24 hours before the owners returned, they tried to escape by climbing the chimney. I think 2 or 3 of them went for it, climbing up. One parent shrieked and got upset, whilst the other and I tried to get them down, using broom handles etc, and they did, eventually, sooty and black, they were white ish to start with. Trapped kittens trying to escape.

    Here’s another.

    My Dad loved guinea pigs, he’d had them as a child. We weren’t allowed pets (aside from a goldfish that lasted 3 years that was won at a school fair) But we could have guinea pigs, if they stayed in the shed. Yup. Nothing was allowed in the abusers domain they she didnt want or like or distracted from her and definitely not an animal. That reminds me. She hated when her favourite people had pets, and she hated the pets too.

    Completely unnecessary photo of a guinea pig, One of my childhood ones did look like this cutey.

    But back to the guinea pigs.

    During the winter they would be allowed on a Saturday or Sunday inside the house for about an hour whilst my dad cleaned out their cage. In the Summer they could be left outside eating grass and in their outdoor cage. So the two of them, salt and pepper their names, were placed in a large flat plastic sheeting covered in hay etc and allowed to run around and we could groom them, stroke their hair etc and cut their nails. All the things that were required to look after them. We all loved them.

    Well, three of us did.

    One person would sit in the corner and have nothing to do with them. I remember us, naive and young, pleading that ‘mum should have a guinea pig too’ – and she would so so reluctantly make a big deal of having one on her knee, and then get all nervous, shaky and fearful it would move, scratch.

    In Short, Psychopath, emotionally neglectful and abusive mother, couldn’t even stroke the guinea pigs.

    The guinea pig could not give her anything. She had no maternal instinct what so ever. Not even to pets. She hated other pets as I said above.

    She didnt even stroke the guinea pigs, might be the thing I wrote on her tombstone.

    Thats my experience of the emotionally abusive and animals. Want to avoid them, can’t relate to them, cant be seen to be attentive of them, neglectful and hating of them.

    So I am wondering, might other emotionally abusive, emotionally immature people extend their same behaviour to humans to their pets?

    Physical abuse is obvious and tragic, but what about pets that are emotionally abused and neglected. Animals that are a tool and not an animal with needs. Treating a pet with the same way they treat a human, as just an extension.

    Theres a definate link, but am just wondering if emotional abusive behaviour towards pets goes a bit under the radar. Do you have any examples?

    Any thoughts? Might you have examples like this, of weird behaviour towards the family pets by someone psychotic or emotionally immature in the family?

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 33) Fearing the Upset Parent

    What phrases dominated your childhood?

    Were there things your parents would say to you?

    Hopefully they were good things, pleasant things – like ‘I love you’ every time you left the house, or ‘what kind of fun shall we do today?’ or a regular phrase said by one of them to you.

    I hope they were nice things.

    Sadly, often its not the case.

    What were the words that dominated my childhood?

    There was one phrase that was said by many many people.

    Because they knew.

    They already had experience of her temper

    They had already tried to stand up to her

    They had already felt the weight of her fury

    They had been bullied by her

    They didnt want the same for me.

    Try not to upset your mother

    That would be my Dad on many occasions

    You’d better eat your tea when you get home, or you’ll upset your mother

    Said my Nanna (RIP) , on the times I had lunch at her house (glorious food) to make sure id be home by tea and suffer the toxic food of the childhood home, served on a plate of eggshells.

    Id better make sure all your washing is done, I wouldn’t want to upset your mother

    Said my Granny (RIP) – who was utterly terrified of her own daughter, at the end of a week staying at her house. Usually the best week of the year, being sent to her house. The week after wed be given a taste of the ‘real’ world after being ‘spoiled’ by granny…

    Dont upset your mother

    Try not to upset your mother

    Your mother will get upset

    Mother upset

    She’ll get upset.

    Walking on Eggshells

    Everyone around

    Fearful, frightened.

    It wasn’t just family though.

    No one could say no to her.

    Whole groups of people had to remove her from churches. Not many can say No to her. Or dare too.

    One to one they had been terrified, belittled, and shocked by her behaviour.

    So they closed their doors.

    Everybody knew – but everyone was terrified.

    Dont upset _________ now (Insert her name)

    Dont upset your mother

    You’ll upset your mother

    The eggshells being laced around the childhood home. Mine fields of rage waiting to explode.

    The trouble was, was that she’d be upset anyway.

    Even if I tried to ‘do the thing’ – they’d be something else.

    Because full attention and full obedience and expectation was exhausting.

    A myriad of unwritten rules that would cause upset if unfollowed.

    Sometimes even by trying to do the thing that avoided the upset, there’d be upset because shed detect this over compensation.

    Everyone else responsible for her feelings.

    There was something else too.

    Because my role in the family, to survive, was soother of the upset one, emotional wedges were created when she got upset. Because I was loyal, I realised I began to believe the emotional upset. To a point, when I was 8 or 9, not when I was 15. Her toxic tears of upset created soothing sympathy, to the point where I was, and had no choice but to go along with it.

    Going along with it meant going without the things that she got upset by…. and those grudges were maintained for decades. Its probably where I developed a hatred of cats. Thats another story waiting to be told.

    Then I began to realise that the things she got upset by weren’t actually right to be upset by. I realised that she was the toxic one, but pretended otherwise. Because…. she wasn’t allowed to be upset…. see where this is going…

    This is the reality of a narcissistic parent, a narcissist and violent person who dominates every room and situation. To the point where so many other people around felt all the ripples, had suffered the same.

    (resources on becoming aware of narcissistic parents are in the resources section above)

    Fear of upsetting and unleashing the fury of the monster.

    Another reason why everyone knew.

    The phrase that dominated my childhood

    The phrase that terrified

    The phrase that meant childhood was a survival mode

    The phrase that meant that there was no freedom or free space that those eggshells weren’t far away.

    The phrase that dominated. Knowing how violent, impulsive, and distressed she becomes, its no wonder.

    What kind of behaviour did this fear create? Hiding, pretending, people pleasing….. absolutely…

    Constantly on guard. Constantly tempering every sentence, action or reaction.

    What am I feeling right now?

    Im 44. And the last few weeks layer upon layer of some of the childhood stuff has returned to my present memory, for a number of reasons, one of which is because of doing more work to listen to my inner child and his feelings, one has been that I encountered the phrase in a pertinent context. So, to be honest with you, the last few days I have been working through the past feelings of what this phrase was felt like when I was 6 or 8 or 11, and reliving the memories, the feelings and anxiety – often anxiety suppressed at the time. I guess in a small way this gives you an insight into the effects of childhood abuse and trauma. That memory comes back to infect the present. It is also an opportunity for me to recognise it, to feel it, to attend to myself and to note the spaces of safety, love and support I am currently in.

    Part 1 of Everyone knew – and everyone was terrified is here – in that post I recollect how other adults already had knowledge of my mother even from one meeting with her.

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 32) How their ‘helpfulness’ hid the reality

    I have shared before about growing up feeling incredibly alone.

    In that piece I referred to the fact that the Toxicity of my mother meant that family members were kept at a distance, physical or emotional wedges were dug in place that meant that they stayed away or I was kept away from them. A family divided and when together – the rare occasions, there were more eggshells and mistruths than a cabinet meeting with Boris Johnson held in a poultry farm.

    But there was something else.

    Whilst Family were being divided, neglected, controlled and abused.

    There was another reason that I grew up alone.

    Sprinkles of Helpfulness.

    You see, people who are this toxic do not have friends.

    Barely did anyone willingly volunteer to come around for coffee to chat with them – victimhood persuasion was often needed and overheard on the phone, and No was barely taken for an answer.

    They didn’t have friends, because if she didnt have any, Dad wasn’t allowed them either.

    Sprinkles of helpfulness though.

    What are you on about James?

    They didnt have friends – because that mean seeing people for who they are –

    Instead, they helped people, rescued them – groomed them even.

    Often for money, or to trade ‘taking them to church’ as a bargaining tool – or to have the ‘right ‘ to judge their morality, she deserved to be rewarded for the helpfulness. (entitled, remember..)

    The list isnt endless of the helpfulness, because it was reluctant and not done with any joy or depth, it was tactical.

    People would be taken on holiday – they’ve had such a tough year

    Children would be looked after – before and after school

    ‘Old dears’ would be visited

    Actually, it was rare that a walk back from church on a Sunday wasnt via some old couple or another, knowing what I know now, they were probably being sized up.

    So called friends ‘had personal problems’ or were ‘going through a hard time’- and ‘Its good to be there for them’ – and mysteriously moved away when they recovered, never to be seen again

    Im reluctant to bring my Dad into this, but, prime fixer and helper was his de facto – when it came to fixing boilers, radiators or any DIY, and thats before building an entire church building. Oh and by the way – She was bitterly disappointed that he ‘only’ got a lamp for all his efforts. The church weren’t grateful enough for all the sacrifice she went through – their reward wasn’t enough….

    Yes, Evangelical Church 1990…she was furious when we got home with that lamp and nearly threw it and smashed it.

    Sprinkles of helpfulness

    And note, if you haven’t noted already ; It wasnt genuine. It was for show.

    She expected to be rewarded appropriately for it.

    We stopped looking after children ‘When it wasnt worth the effort’ – not because it wasnt good for the family

    People started to disappear – when they realised their expectations went up – or the fees did.

    One of her biggest projections was that ‘Other people were being taken advantage of’

    When someone else did something for nothing, because it was a good thing to do.

    Especially anyone who did this and took the attention away from her.

    Have you ever seen the film Spotlight (2002)?

    Its what the Catholic Church did – its Institutional Gaslighting.

    Create a mythical reality of helpfulness in one domain of life, whilst abusing others, in an almost similar space. It perpetuates the disbelief. ‘They can’t do that, they’re so helpful’

    Sprinkles of Helpfulness

    People to ‘fix’

    Vulnerable people to prey on

    Institutions fall for the helpfulness – until individuals work them out.

    Or, as in Spotlight, an external agency puts the patterns together.

    Anyway. As a child. The adults that remained relatively close to us – were those who were being helped

    Because no-one stayed. People who realised they were being played didnt stick around.

    There was no warmth.

    Long term friends didnt come around for meals – because there was no such thing.

    So, growing up alone wasnt just about the people who stayed away

    It was that the so many others were dazzled by sprinkles of false helpfulness

    Caught in the myth.

    And people feeling sorry for them, or grateful for them.

    They couldn’t do that – they’ve been just helpful to me

    They couldn’t do that – they’re good christian people

    And it was always someone else fault when I asked that ‘we haven’t seen ______ for a while’…

    Strange that.

    And maybe Institutions that pride themselves on helping and rescuing are places that can validate abusers who have this tactic – who are unaware or choose to ignore or who believe words, defend and protect instead of listen and change. Fixers and helpers hiding in plain sight.

    It would be extraordinary difficult to be able to articulate the level of psychological abuse and neglect we received in the family, it was even harder when the avenues of who this could be articulated to were shut down. But people knew. They were just as afraid of them as I was. But those who they helped – were indebted to them and weren’t safe. What the ‘helped’ didn’t realise – was that it wasnt genuine.

    The myth of my parents helpfulness meant surviving alone.

    Those they helped weren’t safe for us.

    Those they helped also…weren’t safe from them.

  • Dementors are Real

    The first time I saw the dementors in JK Rowlings Harry Potter, I knew what that feeling was like. The moment when I’m in a room and the life and energy has been sucked out of it. It often only takes one person to do it. They might be outwardly charismatic – but the attention becomes all on them. They might be outwardly carrying the grey cloud of personal victim hood – and want the room to be on their level. Sometimes that person is both. The man or woman child that wants attention.

    They suck the life out of the room. The collective energy.

    There is a longer historical mythology around Vampires. Some perpetuated by the stories, of Transylvania and Whitby in the north east of England.

    Maybe the mythological Vampire and fabled Dementor are attempts to give a fictional embodiment to the very real that exists in human society. For the many who give and contribute, for the many who love, care and are genuine. There are those exists just to take, to win, to consume, to prey.

    I didnt like watching Vampire movies. They were far too terrorising. The only one I could cope with watching was the Polymorph in Red Dwarf, because it was funny. But its the same thing.

    They were far to real to life. A vampire wasn’t fictional in my childhood.

    What does a real life emotional vampire want?

    Not your blood, but your emotions.

    Why?

    Because their tank is completely empty. Because they’re jealous. Because they are needy. Because you are not allowed to have what they cant feel. Because they just want, and just want to take. Because they cannot help themselves..and more besides…

    Emotional abuse and neglect takes a number of forms, though I am not sure there is quite the language except that from mythology to describe how those who neglect and abuse people emotionally also take from them.

    I have written before about pretending and hiding – and this is the only way I could survive growing up with an emotional vampire as a mother. In that post which is linked here – what I described was how I had to pretend to be someone else to fit in with a role that was expected of me. Also how I would have to give pretend smiles to the camera, whilst dying inside.

    Pretending and Hiding

    Pretending and hiding wasnt just about the role – or about fake emotions. Well, actually it was a lot more that that.

    The reality was that the emotional neglect I (and my sister) experienced wasnt just the complete lack of nature and protection emotionally – but it was also that there was an emotional vampire taking from us any positive emotions or situations for themselves.

    Sometimes it was ‘Killjoy’ words and actions ; ‘ Its my job to bring you down to earth’ – after having a good experience – notably away from them. (Jealousy)

    or ‘ I don’t know why you’re so happy’ – whilst im stuck here… (Victim playing)

    But my role growing up was that I was the one who had to soothe my abuser. There was no give, but take. At the time, aged 5 or above I thought this was a special place, a special role – to be the one who could soothe my ‘grown up’ parent. In reality I was being used and taken from. No 5 year old should be cast in the role of comforting their parent (from things the parent had done and not taken responsibility for) – ‘They are being awful to me James, I need you to hug me’ There was no give, only take.

    The vampire at work.

    Giving me the responsibility, also casting me in a favoured role. To nature and protect her. I would be in trouble if I didnt. Remember the eggshells? Yeah those.

    There was a moment when I was about 9 or 10 that I look back on and realise what that had done to me. Aside from being completely soft, and unable to stand up for myself.

    The all watching Vampire patrolled my primary school at lunchtime. I mean, there was no freedom. An incident occurred one lunchtime when she either fell, or a football hit her or some kind of accident happened when she was on patrol. Strengely I always avoided any playground she was in, most kids did tbh. Anyway, this one occasion something happened, I know not what and she got hurt, fell and damaged her arm. Though I dont remember all the exact events of the fall, or the immediate reactions of mine. I do remember being upset all afternoon. My teachers were kind, and lovely, but my emotional response really did not match the event. They thought I was crying because my mum was hurt ‘ Its ok James, she’ll be fine’ – which is perfectly understandable.

    No I was crying that afternoon in 1988 because I hadn’t fulfilled my role. To protect her, I was crying because I was expecting to be in trouble. But there was no way I could communicate that.

    Thats what happens when they take. When she gave me responsibility for her emotions, by taking mine.

    Looking back this event was a key moment for me. Alot changed after then.

    I must have known more at the time than I remember. I must have felt more.

    Can you see how my inner child had no where to go? Apart from hide?

    I worked out, from then, a number of strategies to cope, including the pretending and hiding.

    On any day of success, such as passing driving tests, GCSE’s or A levels when I was existing in my childhood home, she wasnt the first person I would tell. I found people in my life who I could tell who would say

    ‘Well done James’ – instead of the vampire reaction I was used to which was

    ‘I needed to hear this, give me some of your joy’ or

    ‘All that stress you gave me, I can relax now‘ (its all about them remember)

    Another strategy was that my body froze. Any hug, even hello or goodbye in any family gathering I would be as rigid as a board – she did not get anything. It was how I coped and survived. I shut down so she didn’t get emotions. She may have had some of my time, or even nicely cooked food, or even my intellectual capacity in listening to her life drama and personal victimhood, but she wasnt getting emotions. Thats what I naturally did. Shut down.

    This was my norm.

    Its only when I write this, when I realise that you think all sounds awful. But it was my norm.

    I was the child-adult, the emotional rescuer.

    Vampires do exist. So do Dementors and Polymorphs. They are parts of the preying psychopath.

    So, not only was nature and protection, love and genuine support completely lacking – but anything i achieved or did, or was – was also taken – or I was expected to give it to them, for their consumption.

    The thief comes to steal and destroy. The Wolf in Lambs clothing. I heard it all growing up. Vampires who take, who steal and destroy are real.

    Emotional neglect is in many forms.

    What they don’t give – they also take.

    And they still exist.

    Only some people are affected by them though, only some people can see them.

    Usually those who have known them from childhood. Usually those who feel it in the pit of their soul.

  • Walking the hard road of loving myself

    Walking the hard road of loving myself

    Who is the most important person in your life?

    The hardest thing for me, was too realise..that this was actually me.

    What are the things you look after? Your bike? Your tools? the remote control? The car?

    What about yourself?

    I didnt.

    I had no idea how to.

    Theres a great description in the beginning of the book Matilda by Roald Dahl of the sickening parents who espouse greatness on a mediocre child, compared to the parents who completely ignore, belittle and fail to see the magical talented one. I found it revealing as I re read it a few months ago.

    Growing up, messages I heard were that ‘other parents spoil their children’ or ‘pamper’ them

    or

    ‘We’re not going to put pressure on you by rewarding you with money’

    These and others were projections.

    Justifications for a lack of support, acknowledgement and encouragement – for..it couldn’t look like being spoiled or pampered could it…

    Justifications for expectations, and for emotional neglect.

    The thing is, is that as I grew up looking for something that would never happen, I ended up forgetting myself, and times that I did think I was choosing myself, it was seen as being selfish.

    The thing about the constant walking on eggshells, is that your only trying to avoid them, appease them, sooth them.. what happened to me, and others with narcissistic/emotionally immature parents or partners, is that I lost myself.

    There was the ‘me’ that tried to be compliant

    There was the ‘me’ that realised that they had to do life alone

    There was the ‘me’ that had to discover a way of doing life despite them

    There was the ‘me’ that was only scared.

    There was the me – who was unable to make decisions or choices or have needs and wants – because..

    There was the ‘me’ that effectively was oriented around them…around her….around the other

    I hadn’t ever realised myself as important or valuable. How could I? The key to survival was meet their needs.

    What do you mean ‘I’ might be important?

    that just sounds like being selfish James….

    you have to meet my needs, I cant cope if im not the needy one around here

    Isnt God the most important thing in your life James? not you….

    In a way it was easy to hide myself in a profession, vocation even, where I could think of others before myself. Love my neighbour, and get angry about injustice ‘over there’ – rather than be angry about my own condition. Love myself enough to have something to defend.

    Thats the thing with emotional abuse – you become devalued and fearful into becoming almost nothing, but a slave to them.

    Back to Trauma bonding.

    No wonder I and many others dont just get emotionally abused once. Childhood abuse sets us up again.

    Why?

    Unless its obvious, but even then, we dont know how what abused us did so, and therefore we have no words or language to describe it, or then get help to recover from it. So we blindly give ourselves away again in the same way we only know how to. Attracted to only slightly less worse treatment than we’ve already had once. Or think we can try and fix this new abusive person.

    I started to realise, once I had permission and safety to be able to, that I was important.

    I started to realise that I was valuable.

    I started to realise that I was worth something – not just for what I did..but who I am

    I started to realise that I could love myself

    I started to realise that the I part of me, my -self – was ok, was good.

    How did I realise?

    Because I started to give myself time. Because someone treated me to some food, and a house, and somewhere to stay when I had nothing. Because I received.

    I had no choice.

    I was important enough..to be cared for myself.

    It was only a start, it was all it needed to be, a start to realise – but it was a new start, I became my own new toy.

    I was important enough…to invest in discovering myself, and paying for therapy – internal work a priority – rather than external entertainment…because I am important

    I was important enough…to value my time, my safety, boundaries of noise and distraction

    I was important enough…to say no and block those who caused abuse.

    I was important enough…and somehow other changes took place..

    I was important..so its ok to buy myself new clothes, eat nice food, travel and buy things for me that I like, it didnt need an excuse or reason.

    Maybe these things come naturally to you, but they didnt to me. Buying things for myself had previously been met with ‘do you really need that’ or ‘nice of you to spend money on yourself’ or ‘you already have one of those, why do you need another one’ –

    Because someone else needs and neediness more important that my own.

    Gaining self importance was one of the big keys for me in unlocking the doors, removing the layers of onion skins of re building and changing that I needed to do. I would say now that I spend 40 odd years of my life having no sense of self worth or value at all. It was hard work, it still is, as it involves new habits, behaviours and patterns that were default for a very long time.

    I had an inner voice that told me repeatedly that I would get through this, I would survive, that I would work it out…but not an inner voice that told me that I was important, that I was worth it… so when that started to change it was a big thing.

    Feeling and accepting a healthy self importance has been the journey I have made from a place of emotionally empty selflessness.

    Who is the most important person in your life?

    You are.

    And that isn’t selfish. Its the truth.

    How might you start today?

    Are you about to pick a fight with yourself over it?

    Give yourself excuses not to bother?

    Make a reason?

    Yes, its fucking hard to do.

    But you are the most important person you could love today.

    And…so am I…

    Time to love, enjoy, and accept ourselves…we are beautiful just the way we are.

  • What if my Monster only Abused Me?

    What if my Monster only Abused Me?

    Maybe I was going to realise this eventually.

    For all that I have described the details of the abuse I suffered.

    What if it was just me.

    What if it was just me, and my family who suffered and experienced the monster. Our Monster.

    Because, its very likely isnt it?

    Thats the game they play – jackal in public – hyde away in private.

    Public persona – just about gets through – unless challenged, unhinged or worked out

    Ensuring that the suffering goes on alone.

    Ensuring that the suffering isn’t believed

    What if it was just me – because thats more than likely – isnt it?

    The Family.

    They can put on ‘literal’ Sunday best behaviour out there – for an hour a Sunday, or 9-5 Monday to Friday.

    Have friends or allies.

    Meanwhile – was I the only one?

    Was is just my family whose lives were wrecked by her?

    I mean – would anyone in their jobs ever see it?

    Would they ever make a complaint?

    Would they diminish it, or be scared of it?

    Would they ever see it – and choose to ignore it?

    Triangulated?

    Whilst the family suffered?

    But thats the thing isnt it

    Men who abuse their wives – play a great round of golf, talk the talk,

    Women who abuse their husbands – playing the kindly one as teacher, vicar or nurse…or a dominant sales person ready to lie for money

    Hiding behind the social norm, that it’s only men who are abusive

    Could be the person in your workplace, and you wouldn’t know it

    Part of their game, hiding parts of their life away

    So, the family know, they’ve felt the scars

    We’ve then done the lifelong work, amateur psychologists trying work the monster out, professional therapy patients in recovery, healing with survivors gift

    Took us, took me, a long time to realise what it was.

    But can they act out a normal living whilst they’ve abused so appallingly? How is that even possible?

    The psychopath at large, choosing victims appropriately. Playing the victim appropriately.

    Darvo games

    Only leaving the obvious trail amongst the unheard, silenced, victims

    But leaving a trail elsewhere, that only the aware can spot.

    So maybe only the family got abused.

    Only the family saw their splintered personality at large

    Only the family felt the cold

    Only the family were stolen from, emotionally, physically and financially

    Maybe it was only just the abused who know the abuser.

    The truth has set us free – whilst they lie to everyone else.

    So maybe it was just me, just us.

    The victims who know and see – who saw and felt

    It really cant just have been me?

    But what if it was – what if its ‘just’ family.

    They couldn’t do that – could they – be so good to get away with it elsewhere?

    Or has that trail waiting to be discovered? Has no one come forward? Too scared or terrified?

    The shame of being a victim, shame of exposing them, silenced into silence.

    What if there are other stories waiting to be told? What if it wasn’t just me?

    I wouldn’t know – until one of them was brave. Until one of them got angry, until one of them took a stand, but what if that story is dead? – unable to speak?

    Its not possible to be just me – it cant be- can it?

    Whats hidden in places, what trail was left behind, what tales behind closed doors never come to the open?

    Theres no shame in being a victim of my monster, in speaking out – talk to us, talk to me – I already know. You are not to blame.

    It cant just have been me – cant just have been family, can it?

    Surely others can see?

    Thank you for reading this piece, if you would like to respond to me, do so via my contact details, if you have stories of your own regarding my monster, then I would love to hear from you. Know that I will listen and it was not your fault.