James Ballantyne

Tag: gifts

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 19) The gifts of toxic gratitude

    ‘You’re just so ungrateful – after all I’ve done for you’

    In my previous piece I talked about how my abusive caregiver in the way in which they cooked food, often would create inedible food, that actually could be damaging to eat, making the food so uncomfortable, that expressing gratitude or thanks was an act of fakery.

    But toxic gratefulness wasn’t just food.

    To keep a narrative about being ‘poor’ and working for a faith, and gaining sympathy from people – sympathy they also rejected, my parents specialised in the distribution of valueless, token, ill thought through gifts.

    For 50 years.

    At the time the gifts stunned and often brought tears to us as children, as well as our cousins too. They were countless items over the years – Christmas and Birthdays nearly always were tinged with some level of crushing disappointment. The specific item ‘wanted’ was instead replaced by one that was ‘needed’ without any care or deliberation.

    And as children we were then punished for not being grateful for them.

    It didnt stay as children.

    My wedding present from my parents, was their second hand car, that they then expected us to pay for. They didnt want to give something on the wedding list as it wasnt what they wanted to give, so they didnt actually give anything.

    A fiat Uno , G reg, but black.. that was my first car.

    A few years later they said they wanted to pay for a pushchair/buggy for my oldest child, but in going to pay for it, in Durham mother care, the parent asked about ‘keeping the receipt, in case anything doesn’t work out with the baby’.

    How can you be grateful when you are stunned by the awfulness? And yet, what do you do? In a public place – when they then make a big deal of ‘giving’ the pushchair in front of the till.

    Food has already been mentioned. Though Toxic gratefulness occurred regularly, when theres ‘gifts’ given of food. The open cardboard box of reduced items in the supermarket they scavenged, or were going to waste, that they ‘bring’ – and ‘give’ at the front door. Yeah great.

    The problem with all of this, even now, is that I start to sound ‘ungrateful’

    And that’s it.

    When we dare criticise them for how they have behaved towards us in any way. Not only do they selectively not remember. (and they do this often)

    They hide behind, ‘telling the truth ‘ – I was just telling the truth to the cashier..

    Or

    the ultimate

    ‘You’re just being ungrateful, I did lots of things… you just dont realise how difficult you were’

    ‘You’re just being ungrateful, you have no idea how much I sacrificed for you‘

    Toxic gratefulness. Though there must be a different word for it. It what gets banded out when the abusive one feels under threat, when their generosity is questioned.

    Oh its my fault that you cant be generous now is it?

    or

    ‘You have too high expectations‘ – Well if having awareness and empathy and value for others is ‘too high an expectation’..then..

    or..the classic

    ‘I cant change who I am‘ ; Agreed, but why are you threatened when your awful behaviour is pulled up?

    Because. The truth that they aren’t actually generous would hurt if they could even see themselves. But the reality is, is that they’re in such a deluded reality that they can’t see themselves anyway, not beyond their ego, and how the world is there for their taking and getting.

    So they give minimally or not at all, or with the emotional loading attached like breadcrumbs from the table, or to try and hoover you back into their orbit, by their pretence of ‘being nice’.

    I cant remember the age, but I think it was about 8, the birthday party at my house. the one where I only asked for one thing on the table, I didnt want a cake. I wanted a Black Forest gateaux. (yes it was 1986) They were in a supermarket. They cost £3 probably. Do you think I got one?

    guess again?

    Instead I got a two layer chocolate sponge homemade with some cream and cherry pie filling on it. Glorioulsy announced in front of my friends. Her version.

    Where do you go apart from hide, or want to cry. Our birthdays, were their show.

    ‘Youre too hard on your mum, my friends would say as they laughed the next day at school, that case tasted yum’ It had no taste.

    I didnt want large birthdays or parties, because I didnt want them to be at them. Since 8 (ish) I avoided them.

    That they created birthday scenarios, and invited themselves to them, for both my 18th and 40th, and made everything so uncomfortable , not respecting or listening to me, was another thing. Having said I didnt want something, they did it anyway, because they felt they had the ‘right to’ and I had to be ‘grateful’ for something I didnt want, and be violated.

    I learned to tune out. Go into the survival zone. It was the only way to cope. It’s like a surreal moment when time goes so so slow, every breath takes 40 seconds and your desperate to need to go pee every 2 mins just to get out of there. Its awfulness upon awfulness. Yet smile, as you don’t want to appear grateful, or that this isnt walking on eggshells or all a game that they’re publicly doing. Let’s not be an ungrateful Trophy child.

    Which, by the way, they were rude to the service staff, and I had to pay the tip, for the thing they wanted to do, for my birthday.

    I really do sound ungrateful. Dont I.

    But thats just the thing. Every scenario is insidious, uncomfortable, disrespectful, and example upon example of awful behaviour that wounds, hurts, manipulates, and abuses. To start listing them, makes me out to be bitter. So, where is this kind of thing exposed? Do those who suffer this kind of awfulness from their parents have to suffer in silence?

    Emotional abuse is so difficult to quantify, as is narcissistic abuse.

    The penny drops eventually.

    The penny drops in that you get to realise over a lifetime, that when there are things that might be considered worth being grateful for, they do these things for a show ‘ look at us spoiling you now, dont ask for this again’ and then that gifts are rarely so, the penny drops that they struggle to be generous in gift giving, because they struggle to actually be nice at all. Gifts are to create toxic gratitude. A show for them.

    Its not just the stick that abuses, but the absence of anything resembling warmth, empathy, generosity and kindness. Its a kind of emotional neglect.

    So, when I point out the examples above, they are because these are the stories that are most memorable, but lets not get me started on the myriad of others, or the drip drip of the dementor like taking presence in between.

    Surviving psychopathic parenting, left a lasting effect on me, that over the last year im only beginning to understand. Gratefulness was one of the moral armouries used as a weapon.

    Its hard to write about gratefulness without being… well you know. So no wonder as a child its a weapon.

    What about in your case? Is this something you have experience of?

    Its only when I share the stories that I realise how awful it was. So thats why I share. So that you can start to see and heal too.

    If you’re reading this and its beginning a chain of thoughts in your head about your parents, or partner, then do seek support and a therapist, especially someone who can understand emotional abuse and trauma. There are resources on emotionally immature and narcissistic parenting in the resources section above, do check them out too.

  • The Breadcrumbing tactic

    The Breadcrumbing tactic

    One of the confusing things about growing up and living with someone who is emotionally abusive (and this also applies to physically abusive too), is that they are rarely abusive all the time.

    Some people are, and that id learned to switch off from my parents at an early age would indicate that I knew they were unsafe, and emotionally neglectful and immature.

    Because if someone is abusive all the time, then, unless they were trapped in the relationship, and spousal, or parental relation is certainly entrapping, the person on the receiving end is more likely to leave, and do so pretty quick, especially if theres a safe alternative.

    In my own experience of surviving abuse I was on the receiving end of this trick.

    Its known as Breadcrumbing.

    and for someone like me who likes watching wildlife, at Cowpen Bewley Duck pond, the image is pretty accurate.

    Families every now and then show up with bread for the ducks. The left overs, the scraps. Its rarely/never the first slice of the sourdough or granary crusted loaf. But each time, the ducks swim to the shore, ready to be fed.

    The problem with too much bread is that it causes issued with Ducks. But they forget and devour it anyway.

    Its the same with Breadcrumbing.

    Its like swallowing ultimately toxic bread, receiving the scrappy gifts from abuser, to keep you heading back to the shore. Like a pavlov dog, but in duck form.

    This video is where I first came across there term, do have a look

    Breadcrumbing in an abusive relationship has a number of aims, depending on the type of abuse.

    1. To try and create confusion in your mind that this person isn’t always abusive/horrid
    2. For the abuser to show to others that they are ‘trying’
    3. For you to give them a second/another chance

    In my own experience I’ve tasted the breadcrumbs. I think there’s a number of different types, both physical, verbal, emotional and financial. I probably don’t need to describe all the different options used some include:

    1. Overly Expressive physical gifts
    2. Sex
    3. Promises of verbal affection ‘Im trying to be good’, ‘Ill try harder’ ‘ill say I love you every day..if you do’
    4. Offering to help you when you’re in dire need, but this is out of character (abusers can love playing rescue, especially if you’re ill)
    5. Financial gifts,
    6. Being given a pay rise of 3% as NHS staff through the pandemic – when theres corruption elsewhere. (Yes, sometimes breadcrumbs are scattered to ‘feast on’ by the hungry ducks, when theres first class feasting happening elsewhere.
    7. Some physical help, again to rescue you.
    8. A one off, unguarded moment or experience that ‘wasn’t that bad’ – the fun stops when your feelings and needs are considered though…As long as you were enjoying their fun…
    9. They might even ‘do’ something to keep you happy – like fulfil a request, like go to AA or therapy, but its only as a trick, and not done with authenticity

    Whatever it is, its crumbs from the table, to keep you going back..

    For some of us though, the crumbs themselves have been toxic, not even nice bread at all. I know of gifts given to me that make for uncomfortable receiving. Like trying to be grateful for a ‘gift’ of reduced priced food, or napkins, or presents that were clearly won on raffle tickets. Some of those gifts evoked beatings as a child, for not being ‘grateful’ , and I wasn’t the only one. On some occasions these were justified because I was just ‘spoilt’ for asking for too much.

    One of the problems, as Lindsay C Gibson writes is that the breadcrumbs represent a kind of misplaced hope that we think ‘they may have changed’ or that ‘we think that the relationship may be better’ , and as a child what happens is that the child hops around that parent like an hungry bird, trying to elicit some kind of positive response from them. The abusive parent, or partner, gives away the occasional reason to keep hoping. Though some, as I experiences really dont bother.

    Gibson writes that somer Emotionally immature parents can be generous, with a catch. (Gibson, C 2019) . Giving with their own tastes in mind, and what they would like to get, they give to themselves by proxy, and sometimes get it right, but rarely. And even though they say they might be ‘being fair’ the bread crumbing from parents is different to different children, as it fuels the division and projects the different roles for each of the siblings.

    It makes sense though doesn’t it, and is a reason why the receiving of gifts is so difficult beyond an abusive relationship, because what’s been received has often been gifts chucked like breadcrumbs to the ducks.

    The thing is, how many crumbs do you accept before realising it?

    What do you do to realise its only the crumbs you’re getting, when you deserve better?

    References

    Gibson , Lindsay C – Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents 2019