James Ballantyne

Tag: Parental Abuse

  • Why Speak Now?

    On two separate occasions when I was disclosing to the relevant authorities the abusive behaviour of my mother, I was asked the following question.

    ‘Why are you doing this now?’

    It was 25 years since I had left the family home, and been a terrified abused child. Though her behaviour was still the same even as I had been an adult.

    Internal confrontation had occurred previously to absolutely no effect. But then it wasn’t going to, I now know. So the damage continued.

    ‘So… Why now? ‘

    Because that really is the question isnt it.

    I was a Middle Aged man, making a complaint about stuff that had happened a while ago, and where the behaviour still continued.

    Yet.

    The now happened at a time when…..

    I had done the very beginnings of understanding the behaviour.

    I had done at that point the beginnings of some therapy on my childhood… this action of mine exacerbated it ( I stood up to her, my therapist said)

    I knew I wasnt alone in this.

    I thought (incorrectly) that someone might believe me.

    I was a little bit stronger than I was as a child.

    I even thought (incorrectly) that the processes of safeguarding might be strong enough to not be manipulated. ( yeah I was wrong about that too)

    I wanted to protect others. That was it.

    Stronger in myself, wanted to protect others.

    It was time to let others know about the monster.

    …and there had been at least one recent moment where abusive action had occurred, in the present.

    Because.

    It’s strange that there seems to be some weird primacy of someone being able to report abuse at the time.

    (Yes, I am thinking of this… Greg Wallace, and the BBC)

    I know how terrifying it is to make a complaint against someone who is abusive, manipulating, callous and dangerous.

    I know that, though people had faced up to them in the past, nothing was done.

    I know that there was absolutely no way of doing it in the midst, the only recourse is to walk away, run away, hide, isolate.

    I know that there is bewilderment in the moment, confusion and shame. Thats what abuse is folks. ALL OF IT HAS EMOTIONAL ABUSE in it. The vulnerable self blame and feel small, as the powerful person damages and controls.

    WHY NOW…

    BECAUSE THEY CANT THEN. THATS THE POINT.

    WHY NOW?

    I was asked.

    I shouldn’t have been asked.

    It’s completely irrelevant.

    It was the bravest thing I have ever done in my entire life.

    Yet someone in a procedural document considered ‘ why now?’ to be the most appropriate question.

    Why now?

    Because it’s the right time for the victim.

    Thats why.

    Thats always why.

    When they are ready.

    They want their voice to be heard

    They realise what happened to them was wrong

    They work it out.

    They feel brave.

    So.

    Thats why.

  • 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.

  • I’m Glad my Mom Died

    I’m Glad my Mom Died

    ..is a raw, heartfelt, inspiring book.

    It’s about the way in which the unconscious expectations are placed on a child, it’s the story of how a child, then teenager, Jeannette McCurdy, has to resist growing up to maintain the fantasy of her mother, whom she adored, of being an actress.

    I have read many books on parents and narcissism, but this is the first book I have read that describes the story of what the child had to do, and the effects long term.

    There’s much in the book that I can relate to, there’s much that I have seen in other situations too.

    If you want to get an idea of the damage emotional and coercive abuse, by a mother, can do and looks like, and how it sits under the radar of criminality, but is wholly self absorbed and destructive, then this is it.

    It’s telling that the behaviour in the book has generational patterns, the grandmother was a similar whining moaning complaining woman. The men got all the blame (not doing enough, not meeting their needs, aloof, blamed for affairs to disorientate as the women were actually having affairs.. I’ll not tell spoilers) , the women sat aloof , controlling them all.

    The thread of the mother’s perpetual victim story, of having and surviving cancer runs through. This story is forced down her own children’s throats on home videos, and used as a lever to get acting roles for Jeannette, ‘tell them your mum survived cancer as part of the audition’ is often directed.

    The effect on Jeanette is continual people pleasing, pretending, orientating her entire life around not upsetting her mother,(who was always liable to cry, get angry, scream ‘ungrateful’ , or be disappointed) at any or regular occasions. Jeannette is on emotional alert all the time, in a life that until near the end of the book is not hers, but her mothers.

    Jeannette takes on, since childhood, the emotional regulation of her mom, as the one who can soothe her, who can make her mum happy, yet.. to keep the relationship and Jeannette in her mothers orbit, nothing, not even a good audition or making a part is good enough. So Jeannette is perpetually emotionally exhausted, and notably is comes as a shock in her mid twenties that she can think of herself also. But by this time she is high on alcohol and the effects of 12 years of eating disorders.

    Im glad my mom died is raw, it’s funny at times, and I found myself cheering Jeannette on for every healing conversation with a therapist and every step forward she was making, yet the catalogue of abuse and those who could take advantage of her extended beyond just her mother, which isn’t surprising.

    It would be easy to dismiss this book as only being relevent in the culture created by child acting, the media and production companies, but it is easily relatable to other organizations and cultures, especially with a high performative, high expectation , moral expectation. The fact that Jeannette also experienced a high rigid culture of Mormonism and it’s expectations, and it’s associated shame, is a pointer. It’s interesting that Jeannette mothers pulled her away from church, as also projecting criticism of them to Jeannette, causing Jeannette to not continue to go, and feel the shame. Jeannette mom was just invalidating those who might be critical of her to her daughter.

    What I like too is that Jeannette doesn’t use the N word until the very end of the book. But what she describes throughout is her experiences, as they are, the treatment and behaviour she suffered, and her responses to it, so that when she uses the ‘N’ word (Narcissistic) is carries all the weight. Again, those of us who experienced then normalised, then survived in and amongst this will likely get this, how the naming of it heals, but also the categorising hides the varieties of behaviour behind it. It reminded me of when I first read the pink book – the words I discovered were ‘self absorbed’ or as in Lindsay Gibsons books, ‘Emotionally immature’ rather than the oft-banded around N word. But when we learn the terms having suffered it, we know.

    I was warned that I might be triggered by the book, and maybe that warning meant that I read the book prepared for what it may do. Yes, there are some aspects I relate to, high expectations, perpetual victim, emotional eggshells, at least, there are some differences, not every abusive mother looks or is the same.

    Some are more covert, some overt

    Some rely on victimhood, others entitlement

    All have prey and supply, all divide, all use people as extension of roles, none take any responsibility, all create drama.

    I’m Glad my Mom Died, is one such story of the effect of one type of narcissistic abusive mothers, it’s relief to those who’ve experienced something similar (to know we’re not alone) and insight to those who start to see the patterns from this example.

    Cheering you on Jeannette, keep on going putting yourself first.

    Im Glad my Mom Died is available here

    Thank you to my new Daughter in Law Meghan for recommending this book to me, much appreciated, and to my lovely Christelle for transporting it across the pond.

  • Writing the Rainbows

    I sometimes, no, often, get myself into a spin.

    It happens, that when something is challenging, difficult and messy (mild words for ‘WTF is going on?’)

    I write. I write for myself, with words you will never see.

    I write for myself – and they end up in the draft pile

    I write for myself, with words that you sometimes see

    I have thoughts and ideas of stuff I could write about and come back to later.

    I also, in the moments through the mind swirl of the WTF moments, develop new creative interests.

    Oh, I just realised.

    STFU James.

    I haven’t existed without ‘that’ mind swirl.

    There has barely been times when the damaging effect of my psychopathic parents doesn’t have some underlying, or explicit effect, that I might be in the midst of processing, learning, and regrouping myself from, the ‘big’ feelings.

    But what I find interesting, is that I struggle to write, or even want to write when im not having to wrestle, churn or try and deal with something.

    Its as if there’s creative energy from within it.

    Expression through Depression for want for a better word.

    And there’s something interesting too.

    I find it really easy to invalidate my own work – not because it’s not any good.

    But because of what I was going through at the time.

    It’s like ‘ I dont think I’ll publish that, because I was definitely having a WTF kind of day?’

    Yes I should check what motives I have for writing, and sometimes I get that wrong, I know – I mean not every one of 1000 blogs in 12 years is with a perfect motive, some cross the line – especially if I have been angry with the government ;-)

    But it’s like saying that The Verve shouldn’t have written Bitter sweet symphony when in a depeessive state and waited until they were feeling ok… and as for Damien Rice..

    Maybe I have been conditioned to only validate what I write when im feeling good – so not to overshare too much darkness? But is that hopeful or real? Because you really want to hear how I am ok now, but felt shit a few weeks ago, and look at me, giving a great redemptive arc story.

    Maybe there’s inspiration in the sticky muddy mess of life, and creativity through and in the pain, maybe thats more human. Maybe polished, is just that, polished, pretend and shiny. Maybe I should just write, because that may be what I am good at. Maybe there is no perfect time to write, maybe actually there will only be ‘in the midst’ of long term processing and remaking (I still reluctant to use recovery as a term tbh) , and there will be pockets of light punctuating the revealing and discoveries. Maybe there’s something about the gritty struggle as much as when it’s like riding s bike downhill with the wind in the back. The glimpses of blissful consciousness concurrent in fields where poppies and thorns grow.

    Isnt that what good poetry or songwriting is all about anyway?

    Creativity in and through the rainbows of clouds, sunshine and rain.

    Holding the float out to surf on the calm and choppy waves

    To let the flow of creativity ride, sink or swim on the waves.

    Time to write about surfing, sinking or swimming through the waves,

    Time to write about life in all its becoming wholeness

    Time to release the wrestling with writing, and let it flow.

    To open up the doorways into which the channels of life flows.

  • The two things that robbed me….of myself.

    If yesterday I wrote about my own joinery from self loathing and denial to becoming more self referential, respectful and also giving space to trust my feelings. Today I’ve pondered the question – what happened to me, so that I had no ‘faith’ in myself? What happened to the extent to which there was no ‘I’ in my life, to trust myself, my feelings, emotions, desires or wants.

    It boils down to this

    Psychopathic Parents + Evangelical Faith = No Self Trust

    In these ways:

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I was told not to be selfish

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I heard that my core was sinful

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I was told I wasn’t enough

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I was told that everything good I did…wasnt me..it was God

    Self trust wasn’t possible because I was made to feel embarrassed or ashamed for having emotions, desires or wants

    Self trust wasn’t possible when my emotions were stolen by others.

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I wasn’t encouraged for being good (or when I was accused of being the ‘eldest son’ )

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I was terrified of upsetting my abusers.

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when I was encouraged to pray that God would fix things.

    Self Trust wasn’t possible..if my ‘self’ had to be denied.

    Self trust wasn’t possible if I numbed the pain and disconnected.

    Self trust wasn’t possible, even being clever or good… wasn’t enough.

    Self trust wasn’t possible… All to Jesus I surrender.

    Self Trust wasn’t possible, if Jesus gave me all my good feelings.

    Self Trust was invalidated if I tried to express myself

    Self Trust wasn’t possible – when my body was bad (Spirit is good) – and in my body is my emotions, feelings, desires and energy.

    Self trust wasn’t possible when I was masking abuse for 40 years.

    Self trust wasn’t possible if I was told who I was…and I had to accept it, whilst dying inside.

    Self Trust wasn’t possible when my real self was hidden away, unseen.

    Just Pray – they said. Be good – they said. Be quiet. Dont make a mess. Fulfil our expectations for you – they said. Grow up and dont be silly..they said.

    Be our trophy to be proud of – they said. But do this alone.

    Dont ever be who you are. Dont ever think for yourself.

    Live to soothe and placate and please your abuser.

    Live to please and worship God…and deny yourself in the process.

    How could I respect myself, if I didnt trust myself, how could I know myself if I was hiding myself away? How could I trust myself… if God was always watching…and I had to remember sins and feel only continual guilt and shame.

    I was taken..from myself.

    What am I in all this?

    Where am I in this?

    Who am I in this?

    Today. This day. This month. These last few years.

    Have been unapologetically about me.

    Not just ‘finding myself’ – but…actually finding, connecting, listening, feeling and knowing myself. But its no fucking wonder I had hidden myself away… or that I had no sense of self in ‘my’ life. It was all about other people. Other people and ‘other’ Gods. Losing myself in the process. I can look back and see this. Realising the extent of what I wasn’t able to be.

    Reminding myself, now, of my own deep strength. Acknowledging it and accepting it, and being utterly grateful for the now.

    The spills of life going inwards, deep burning of molten lava piercing into the wounds. Feeling Raw, but feeling true, feeling at all. Being me. Healing from within. One layer at a time. One pebble to climb, then a rock, then more. Step by step.

    Soul, heart, mind and body on a beautiful discovery. Wonder from the heart outwards. Time to live. Spiritual life… from the inside out.

    Oh yes, its time to live. Time to be.

  • 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.

  • The Challenge of ‘Letting Go’

    The Challenge of ‘Letting Go’

    What does it mean to ‘let go’?

    What does letting go mean, when the damage has been so great – from people who are supposed to be anything but this?

    I thought I had let go of them, one time, but I was running away scared

    Ran away as far as I could – geographically and physically – but running scared of them

    Running away was all I thought I could do

    But

    Running away is pretending

    Running away wasnt wanting to face

    Running away when I couldn’t articulate it

    Running away was saying things like ‘I didnt have a bad childhood’

    Running away wasnt being true to the self I was

    Frightened James running away.

    Thats not letting go.

    ‘They did this to me’

    ‘Its their fault I’m like this’

    I cant change who I am and ill blame them

    Thats not letting go either

    Thats accepting that nothing can change

    And im just their continual victim

    Letting go, means not holding on

    Not holding on to the pain they caused

    or the excuse that I can give them

    Keeping the pain close

    Letting go, means letting that go

    Noting it, seeing it, feeling it, unescapable moments and reminders

    Opportunities to keep healing, not holding

    letting go – and letting go of the shame,

    The shame of things I needed to do to cope and survive

    The shame that I felt responsible for fixing them, soothing them

    The shame of not meeting their expectations

    Guilty by dissociation.

    The shame of being theirs. Their son.

    Identity shame.

    Letting go – means not holding on, means not running away, means releasing responsibility and giving it to someone else

    Letting go – and knowing that I am enough, I have a voice, I have needs and I am free

    Letting go – facing, accepting and making changes to protect myself

    Letting go – is that what forgiveness is? Forgiving myself for what I put myself through..because of them?

    Letting go – of their effects being my story

    Letting go – of having them take more power in my life and future

    Letting go – and being strong

    Letting go – of any myth of normal

    Letting go – expectations of pleasing or meeting their needs

    Letting go – and loving myself

    Letting go- and valuing myself

    Letting go – and releasing the pain

    Letting go – and making myself light again

    Letting go means being the sky and not on their cloud

    Letting go – to discover myself

    Letting go – to be the me I should have always been

    Letting go

    To breathe clean air

    To think clean thoughts

    To be in the present

    It’s time.

    Its time to not carry any longer.

    The inability or rather unwillingness of the human mind to let go of the past is beautifully illustrated in the story of two Zen monks, Tanzan and Ekido, who were walking along a country road that had become completely muddy after heavy rains. Near the village a young woman was trying to cross the road, but the mud was too deep it would have ruined the silk kimono she was wearing. Tanzan picked her up and carried her over to the other side.

    The monks walked on in silence. Five hours later, as they were approaching the lodging temp. Ekido couldn’t restrain himself any longer; ‘Why did you carry that girl across the road?, he asked ‘We monks aren’t supposed to do that’

    ‘I put the girl down hours ago, said Tarzan ‘ Are you still carrying her?’

    Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

  • Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 31) It wasn’t a relationship, just roles being played.

    Its a shame that your relationship with your parents has broken down…

    Id like to try and respond to a question that I often get in relation to my Parents. Its based on the relatively frequent statement that I get, from well meaning and concerned friends and also others, and its a difficult thing to try and explain, but I will do so anyway.

    By the way, if you haven’t read it, there’s 30 parts to my survival story, and its here , and theres 15 things not to say to children who have abusive parents here – as there are others to that of above..

    And I completely get it the sense that for some people they have a ‘normal relationship’ or even a viable relationship with their parents – one in which theres maturity, fun, highs, lows, conversations, and an emotional maturity – or an acceptance of growing, changing etc. Its viable, at least – no relationship is normal I guess.

    The thing is though, a broken down relationship and reconciliation requires a number of factors – truth, honesty and also a requirement for change to happen – and importantly – a broken down relationship implies that there was actually a relationship in the first place.

    This is the bit that is and has always been difficult to explain.

    I have described already that I was given a variety of roles as a child – chief comforter of the abusive one, trophy child, ‘mature’ , the little grown up, having to work hard, fixer and responsible, being taken from for her glory – with high expectations of making them proud or avoiding giving them stress.

    I was born with a role.

    My Sister was also born with a role.

    (My Dad was also given a role.)

    All of these roles are in relation to the abusive one, my emotionally immature mother who was and is mother-child and has many indicators of dark-triad personality, showing high narcissism and psychopathy. It was impossible not to have a role-self as a child – and have the choice to comply or reject this role. With fear and punishment for rebelling or threatening too.

    One of the reasons for this is that she played roles too. From an early age I can remember her having to articulate being ‘mum’ now or ‘putting on her ‘dinner lady’ hat on, or ‘loving wife deacon’ role – at church on a Sunday. This got worse as ‘grandma’ , ‘minister’ were added later on.

    ‘Im playing mum role now‘

    Unbeknown to me as a very young child, or even later, this behaviour was normalised – even if it seemed weird – what it might reveal is a splintered personality, deeply – but as a child it meant that there was a falseness to how any interaction was, it was as if it was being played. Disintegrated.

    Maybe this is normal too – but it was very obvious too that the mother ‘role’ was the one that she was grumpily reluctant to do, or fulfil – especially instead of work related, or professional ones – most notably anything to do with being a minister. This was the place where she could dedicate to avoid any parenting ‘role’ – which seemed inferior.

    So, as part of my survival in this dynamic I had to develop a ‘role-self’ – growing up fast, keeping quiet – because what I wasn’t able to be was my true self – adapting myself into conformity in a role, trying hard to be – for security, belonging or reward – were that to ever come, but gave up on that ages ago.

    Nothing around someone so emotionally immature, or psychopath can be seen for itself – it is seen for what it can be for that person to take from, like a parasite. This includes possessions, ceremonies like weddings or funerals (they destroy these) or the general public to denigrate (like waiters etc – big red flag). This included what the three of us around her could be taken from and destroyed.

    If the persons around such a person are playing roles – to survive – with a person who is splintered themselves into roles and creates roles around them to take from … what kind of relationship is there?

    There isn’t one.

    Not a viable, safe one, not one where any sense of real self can be present. Just one in which roles are enforced, played or avoided.

    Some of this ‘role’ / hat wearing is revealed when they make contact via writing or email – its often far too formal (going into business speak) , too spiritual (a high spiritualised self) , or mixing up tenses or mixing up writing in the first or third person in the space of one sentence or paragraph – and rarely using ‘I’ – I’ve written about the confusion of the toxic email here. They often write as if its from the other person – the partner who is ‘once’ – but there are usually clues to this – watch for it.

    Anyway, what am I getting at.

    I suppose what I’m getting at is that part of all of this is an acceptance, of seeing all the roles having to be played – and of realising that because of this – there wasnt an actual relationship – ever. Now, obviously to maintain a role there has to be a lot of pretending, hiding, lying, to maintain appearances and then patterns of denial or justification when threatened. Some of that is what im having to do with therapy, see the roles, and work out what I needed, or what I hid, and denied in myself, feelings, emotions and creativity.

    There wasnt a relationship to breakdown. Just people playing parts to survive a psychopath.