Scapegoat: Anger & Sadness

I need some blog-writing therapy today.  I am so tired that I can’t actually be arsed to write, but I really need to, so I am hoping this helps.

Last night I was playing on my phone as me and my husband drove back from a wedding quite far away. I was flicking through social media and not paying much attention until I clicked onto my sister’s Instragram page to see if she had put anything up and saw that apparently we were no longer “following” each other… I knew immediately that she had removed me/blocked me/whatever it is called but just to be sure I asked someone else if they could still see her stuff and, obviously, they could.

I was shocked and hurt.  Why had she done this and why now?

I haven’t heard from my sister in months, I blogged about what happened previously but in short she is angry with me for not attending a family bbq in the summer that my mother and stepfather arranged for my grandparents and extended family.  I also blogged back then about my reasons for not going (mainly my stepfather but also not wanting to be around the toxicity of them all being drunk and having to attend without my husband because my mother and stepfather hate him and he hates them).

I would like to say at this point that it was not an easy decision not to go, but in all honesty, it was.  I went camping with my husband and stepchildren instead and I was pleased with the decision I made. I was relieved and glad and, I’ll be honest, I was proud of myself for doing what I needed to do for me for once and for not being guilt-tripped into attending something for the sake of keeping the peace or avoiding conflict.  That may sound selfish but I am very low contact with my mother and completely no contact with her husband for a reason (many actually) and do not feel safe going to an event like that, particularly without my support system (husband).

My sister however… well, she thinks I am the worst person in the entire world for not attending and she can only see this through her own eyes.  I am selfish because my grandparents would have loved us ALL to be there and my personal favourite “they are going to die soon” and we won’t have the chance to do that for them again.  In other words, I have ruined their “dream” and now they will die unhappy because of me.  Powerful aren’t I?? *rolls eyes*. By the way, this whole me and death thing is a theme in my family.  My mother told me when I was younger that if I told my nan about the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of my mother’s then boyfriend, she would have a heart attack and die.  My therapist often tells me “you are not that powerful Twink” and I have to repeat that to myself when the guilt over this kicks in now and again.

When my sister aired her disappointment at me, I told her that I did what was right for me and that whilst she had every right to be annoyed or upset about that, it was HER issue and not mine and I did say (in anger) that she had no right to contact me and say everything she was saying.

Months have passed since that happened and suddenly yesterday she has unfollowed/blocked me on social media.  WHY?

Anyway, I have felt very sad today. Very down and its made me reflect on and (over)think about so many things re her, mainly her, but also my mother, my entire family really and I guess in many ways I’ve felt a bit sorry for myself but the general feeling today has been how UNFAIR it all is.  I said to my husband earlier that I know I sound immature and childish saying that, “unfair” feels like a young word to me, but that I just can’t help it.. that is the feeling and I can’t change how I feel just because it isn’t mature enough.  I’ve learnt enough in therapy to know that denying your feelings really doesn’t get you anywhere.

The main thing eating away at me today is that I just want to have a nice, normal relationship with my sister. I would love to have the closeness that many sisters have and that I just do not understand why that is not possible.

With the risk of sounding like a narcissist myself, I have looked after my sister for her entire life.  I have cared for her since I was a child myself, literally. I have supported her through her spells of depression. I’ve rescued her from my mother’s rages – helped her when she has been suicidal and been there as an older sister for her to talk to, cook for and all the other stuff.  Then after literally years of that care, I don’t attend a flipping bbq and I’m cast as the worst person in the world and ignored for months and now, apparently I am so awful that she doesn’t even want me to see her Instagram photos!!! WHY?

There have been many times over these past months that I’ve wanted to contact her and try to sort this mess out, to fix it but T has advised me many times that my sister is used to treating me badly, being abusive or nasty and then not speaking to me for a while before I contact her and let it all go and repeat… she told me that I have always taken the role of mother and she’s been able to act badly with no repercussions and that now I needed to let her know very clearly, I will not tolerate her bad behaviour anymore and that I will not just let it all go without any kind of discussion or apology.  She advised me to let her come to me.  I told her then, that she wouldn’t. That she is the most stubborn person I know but she told me to wait it out.

I can’t decide if I am more hurt or angry today. I feel both things so strongly.  I could cry right now so there’s definitely sadness but I am also enraged at the unfairness of it.  It triggers an old wound in me of not being loved and of not being good enough and it triggers a current wound in me of being the flipping scapegoat despite not having done anything wrong.

She cannot see things from my point of view because she is different to me.  She had a difficult childhood too, in different ways to me. We had different issues to deal with.  She is too young to remember some of the worst things, she didn’t get sexually abused and not to sound braggy, but she had me protecting her and caring for her which I did not have.  BUT she was clearly affected by my mother’s lack of interest and love and it led to my sister’s depression.  Me being my mother’s project and golden child for a few years also stuck the knife in and made her feel rejected and left out and so, we both have our own insecurities and difficulties.  Sadly my sister is very strongly against therapy and so she has managed to convince herself that my mother is wonderful (and changed!) and that my mother’s husband is an amazing man and that altogether, the family is very lovely and very happy and that it is only me ruining things for them all.

My poor mother is so upset and hurt by me.. SHE is so upset and hurt by me and oh, did I mention that I’ve so upset and hurt my grandparents by not going to the bbq.  Ugh.

I am the scapegoat. I am the one with the problem. I am the one who holds a grudge and doesn’t “move on”.  I am the one who has been brainwashed by a therapist, a therapist who I “still” see when I should not.  I have forgotten about my own family and now only care about my husband and his.  I have been selfish and cruel and my sister just cannot stand a person like me, one with no morals.  My mother said recently that me and my sister have “very different priorities”.  What she meant by that was that my sister priorities her and my stepfather and my grandparents etc – …. and that I do not.

That’s true.. and there are many, many reasons for that.  Did my mother prioritise me when I was a child? No, she did not.  But that sentence would be seen as further evidence of me not “getting over things”, holding a grudge, not moving on blah blah and they would say things like “what is that therapist telling her because she clearly isn’t helping her to get over her anger at these perceived wrongs.  She’s brainwashed”.

I’m angry about how unfair this all is. I grew up feeling alone, unsafe and unloved. I was literally not safe.  My mother was selfish and only interested in men, she did not enjoy me, I was literally just a burden.  My entire childhood was a lonely, scary, awful time and now that I am finally an adult myself, trying to recover from all of those years… I am being scapegoated and hated because of my distance from my mother.  HOW IS THAT FAIR?

I know that everyone thinks they are innocent in arguments with other people but this feels so totally unjust that I want to scream.  I not only made it through my awful childhood but I acted as a bloody substitute mother for my sister for years and years and now she’s living with my mother and step-father playing happy families whilst they all talk about how awful a person I am.

My mother clearly is never going to be able to admit she was a shit mother.  She does not think she did a single thing wrong. Nothing that I felt growing up is valid, nothing.  I am deluded and made it all up. I need my “head testing” (literally her words).  That’s fine. I genuinely think I have made peace with that.  I no longer need her to be able to validate my pain because I have had it validated from T over the last 5 years of therapy and, more importantly I suppose, I validate my own pain now.  I remember how I felt and that is all that matters.  Whether she can ever acknowledge her mistakes and apologise no longer matters.  I have worked VERY hard to get to this point but my sister…. clearly I am not “there” yet because this has seriously stirred me up today.  She has a VERY short memory.. or she has an extremely good defence mechanism.

My husband said earlier that my sister is only “nice” to me if I do exactly what she wants me to do.  The second I say “no” to her, this happens. She says a load of nasty and unfair things to me and then disappears off……….. and eventually I chase after her because I miss her, because I want us to be sisters and possibly because I am still trying to “look after her” like she is my child because for so many years, she may as well have been.

I will never be able to do what my sister wants me to do which is to play happy families again.  My sister would like me to make up with my mother and stepfather, start going to my mother’s house again regularly, attend every family party and event and just do the things that she thinks I should be doing.  Instead I am difficult and selfish.

I will never be able to win. I will never be able to do what she wants me to do.  I don’t keep my distance to hurt or punish my mother – I just keep myself safe.  I do what is best for me and if that is selfish, well then I am selfish, but all in honesty I think I am just healthy.  For years I was a people-pleaser and a codependent, but now I am not and I am glad of that. My mother (and my sister) would like me to sweep everything under the rug and smile and get along with everyone but why should I? I can’t understand how my sister can remember our childhood and put it all aside like it doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe that is what I would have done had I not had therapy after all, until I had therapy I didn’t realise even half of the ways my mother had hurt me.  This is why my family think therapy is so awful.  Why uncover and validate all of your pain when you can just squash it down and drink yourself stupid every weekend instead?

Why fix dysfunctional patterns when you could just continue to repeat and pass on the hurt to another generation?  WHY take a look at yourself when there is always someone else to blame? Me being the problem in the family enables them to look squeaky clean because they are all fine – it is only me with the issue.  It definitely serves my mother to have my sister on her “side”.

The conflict remains. I miss my sister and I wish we could have a close bond but I cannot do what she wants me to do and I am so hurt and angry with her for treating me like a monster from simply protecting myself.  I wish she could understand that my mother refusing to validate, accept or apologise for anything in my childhood has caused me unbearable pain and appreciate my need to keep my distance.  I wish she could just respect my decision and love me anyway – without strings.  But she cannot.

Being the family scapegoat is horrible. It is lonely and feels grossly unfair. There is nothing I can do about it.  Challenging the family system is clearly an act punishable by rejection and isolation and that is very painful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surprisingly Sad (Mother’s Day)

I feel weird right now.  I have all sorts of feelings going on and I feel all sort of… muddled up and unsure of them.  It’s hard to explain.

I met my mother and sister for lunch today, we were there about an hour and then I took my car to be cleaned and sat in a queue for literally 40 minutes trying NOT to think about it all but now I am home and I have an hour to myself.

I have cried a few tears but again, I’m not sure what they were for exactly. Confusion, sadness.. something else?

This might be a surprising post from me and a little different to my usual when it comes to my mother (believe me, I am just as surprised).

Last night I was in the bath reading a book and thinking about today and I felt the urge to text my mum and tell her that I was looking forward to seeing her.  Almost automatically, I told myself no, I don’t do things like that.. but then I refused to listen to that and decided it was how I feeling and so what did I have to lose? I sent it and she replied immediately saying she was also looking forward to it and we had a few messages about a programme she was watching.  That programme was “Dirty John”.  She said she kept having to pause it because it was shocking her and making her anxious and stressed and I found myself wondering if she could see how that story could have so easily been about us.  Me, her and my sister.  I nearly said that, but thought better of it.

Anyway, I got there a while before my sister today and found her walking around the garden centre.  I took her a card and a bunch of tulips and we walked around the plants together for about 5 minutes before going into the tea rooms.  We mainly chatted about a house that I am viewing tomorrow that I have fallen in love with already and she told me that she has already seen it because my aunty was thinking of buying it but had decided not to (can you believe that?).

Anyway, conversation was fine. I felt a familiar sense of kind of nervousness or awkwardness or something but not badly.. just it was there.  Anyway we ate our lunch and chatted about various things.  At one point they were talking about my aunty’s celebration and how lovely the venues were etc… I surprised myself at feeling a bit left out but they didn’t seem to notice that or it didn’t cross their minds that I might feel that way.

And then we all walked to our cars and went our own ways.

The feeling I am left with which surprises me is I feel sad at how distant and disconnected things feel.  It might not make much sense to read this, but I feel in touch with missing her.  She feels so far away.  WE feel so distant.  It feels so sad to me right now.

I’m surprised that I feel this way because most of the time I just want to keep as far away from her and them as I can and only last Sunday I literally CRIED at the thought of “having” to see her.  I torchured myself for months about mother’s day and about how fake it all felt for me and how crap it would feel. And it does, but for a different reason to what I was expecting.

I suppose if I am honest with myself, I wanted her to me all mummsy and want to see me for longer.  She always seems in such a rush to go and usually that suits me just fine.  Not today it seems.  I wanted her to suggest we went somewhere else afterwards or I wish she invited me to something or suggested we did something together soon … I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve come away and I feel so…. abandoned? I don’t know. I feel like she’s properly given up on me.  I feel like I’m removed .. disconnected… I’m not her daughter anymore and I know that doesn’t make sense, I can’t explain what I mean any better at the moment.  Perhaps the feelings are too current.

I finished reading a book this morning, a fiction book and the story is about a grandmother, a mother and an adult daughter.  There were various things in the book that made me think and one of those things was how in the story, the adult daughter and her mother had a very distant and awkward relationship – the daughter even called her mother by her name and not mum/mother etc.  In the book their relationship improves and also, another woman (also a mother) says that mothers are just women too and how old does a daughter have to be before she realises that – that mothers aren’t just mothers or wives, they are people just like us.  It got me thinking.  Perhaps it is wishful thinking but I started to think that maybe there is a way that me and my mother can improve our relationship now that I’ve dealt with so much of the old hurt and pain.  Now that I don’t need her in the way that I used to.  I wondered if perhaps there could be a way that I could build a new relationship with her, one where she was just a woman and so was I… where she didn’t need to be judged on her previous mothering skills … does that make any sense?  Anyway, I suppose today when I sat at lunch and felt the obvious emotional distance between us, it hurt because it feels like she’s moved on from me (and again, I know that doesn’t make much sense either).

I feel like I’ve been left behind or something.

Her and my sister are so clearly close nowadays and I know that people say things will change if my sister doesn’t do what my mother says or wants etc, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that.  It’s like my mother has changed now that my sister has moved out and their relationship is more adult.  Perhaps it would be the same for me?

I kind of feel that I’ve pulled away so much that it all lost. I feel like it could never be anything more than it is now and that I’ve caused so much damage – irretrievable damage?

I also know that anything I’ve done I had to do at the time and I needed to do for myself.  For my own sake. To heal and to try and process my childhood pain and how that still effected me as an adult. I don’t blame myself for it but it feels very sad right now that this is where we are.

I don’t know what I was expecting.  Perhaps I’ve just been triggered into the little girl and I will feel differently later or tomorrow.  My heart just hurts a bit right now is all.

I don’t know why the sudden wish for it all to be made better.. I find myself sitting here at home on my own and visualising sitting at her house with her.  I visualise sitting in her garden with her just chatting and visualise going there after work on a Friday and staying over the night, with no rush to leave and the comfort of that.  That is weird because I haven’t done either of those things in years – literally years and they were very seldom nice times anyway.. often she would tear me apart in some way about my weight or clothes or my boyfriend of the time etc.  It’s all fantasy stuff I suppose.  It’s the wishful-thinking.. rose-tinted glasses thing I guess…

I thought I was dreading seeing her and I thought I would be relieved once it was all over as quickly as possible but actually the effect is quite different. I feel a real hole in my heart this afternoon and I’ve cried as I’ve sat and typed this entire post.

I wonder how she is feeling but I have this horrible sense that she is absolutely fine – happy and I’m crying like an idiot because she is “over it” all and for some reason I am left behind wishing it was different/that she felt different.  Of course I actually have no evidence of any of it.

It isn’t that I wish things could go from what they are now – non-existent to absolutely everything but I wish there could be more than what there currently is.  I wish my husband would tolerate her and I wish I could forgive her husband and her enough to move on with a new future.  I just don’t think some of those things can happen.  It makes me very, very sad.

edit: I liken this feeling to having broken up with someone for a good reason and then meeting up again in the future and feeling the change and the space between you and someone you used to know so well. Wishing you could get back together but sending that they don’t, that they’ve moved on.

Buying an old childhood house/the money

Last night I had a dream that I took my sister to see one of our old houses.  We stood outside the house, facing it and she told me that she didn’t recognise or remember it at all.  I couldn’t believe it.  I started to describe the layout of the rooms to her but she just didn’t remember living there at all and I was so surprised.

In the dream I wanted to/was going to buy that old house of ours back and live in it as an adult – now.  I can’t be sure now but I think my sister was still quite young in the dream, not a child but clearly younger because I think she was going to be living there with me.. (I think).

I woke up from this dream this morning and was pretty confused. Why on earth was I dreaming about that particular house.. AGAIN.  Last night’s dream has to be the third or fourth time I’ve dreamt about that house and I haven’t lived there for about 15 years! I moved a lot as a child and am not exaggerating by saying I have lived in about 25 houses, possibly more, so I wonder why I keep dreaming about that particular house.

I Googled what it means to dream about a house you’ve lived in previously and it asks questions such as “what does that house mean to you?” and “think of the house as yourself, what does the house symbolise or represent to you?”.  Well, let me tell you one thing: the house does NOT hold good memories for me.

• First of all that is the house that I was groomed and sexually abused in.  That is probably the most obvious of the things I associate with that house but also as I didn’t tell my mother, the house I felt terrified and kept the biggest secret of my life in.  To date probably the most scared I have ever been.
• It is the house that I witnessed my mother being beaten up by one of her fiancé’s in.
• Whilst I lived there I used to have to babysit for my sister nearly every single night after school whilst my friends went out and had fun.
• I ran away from home when we lived there.
• I had to act like an adult the whole time we lived there as I had so many responsibilities.  I had to look after my younger sister, cooking and cleaning for her, bathing her etc, but I also had to look after my mother when she was dumped or when she was physically hurt.
• I also lived in that house when I lost my virginity to the boy who then told my mother he actually loved her……… GAH!
• Whilst I lived in that house my mother would spend nights and weekends away with various boyfriends and I would be left alone.  I used to have house parties/gatherings and invite all my friends over so I wasn’t alone.  I even spent a Christmas Day evening alone in that house at 15 whilst my mother went to see a guy.

I guess considering the above that my time at the house is a pretty decent representation of the chaos and dysfunction that was my life, that was my childhood/teen-hood.  So why on earth would I be dreaming of wanting to buy it and move back into it?

Is it about wanting to live there without those things happening? About kind of painting over the bad things and trying to live there with happy memories?  WHY would I want to go and live in a house that was such a reminder of so many painful things?

If a present day situation is triggering some unfinished emotions from my time in that house, that could make sense, but again why would I want to go and buy it and live in it?

If the house IS me in the dream, then what am I?  A very sad, pained, scared, lonely teenager. Is that how I am feeling now?

I can kind of understand why my sister was in the dream and also why her inability to remember living there shocked me so much.  Me and my sister have a different experience of our childhood.  Both of us remember missing some fundamental things from our mother, both of us remember some dramatic things happening and both of us remember moving house and school often and feeling scared of certain men BUT she doesn’t remember some of the things I do and she didn’t experience some of the things I did.  Firstly she is 7 years younger than me, so for 7 years that I was neglected and alone, she was not born.  Secondly, she was very young when her father hit my mother and when my mother had an affair behind his back that I used to have to see.  She was also very young when we moved a lot of the time and she used to stay with her dad a night or two in the week and at weekends.  Not to brag, but she also had me looking after her and I didn’t get that from anyone.  She didn’t experience sexual abuse (that we know of) and she didn’t experience the same mother that I did.  She had it worse in some ways, she was the scapegoated child and I became (at about 17) the golden child.  Our memories of things are different.  Our experiences were different.  So her not remembering living in that house kind of makes sense.

It’s no surprise that I am dreaming about childhood related things after what happened on Friday I suppose and I’ll be honest and say that I felt sad all day Friday at work and then I felt the sadness creep back in yesterday late afternoon/evening and I have spent all of today feeling miserable.  I feel kind shitty you know like when you feel angry but you know it’s actually that you need to have a huge cry and let all the boo-hoo’s out?

I feel like potentially the meaning of this dream is really obvious but I just can’t see it.

Is it tied into this money somehow?

Her sending me that money Friday afternoon really threw me.  As always, I didn’t see it coming.  I spent hours debating what I should do and hours feeling sick and anxious about it.  It is still playing on my mind now but I feel I said the right things in my messages to her.  For anyone that missed my post about this, Friday afternoon about 4.30pm my mother text me and my sister to say she was about to pay some money into both of our accounts.  She did, she sent £1,000!! Just for nothing, just out of the blue.  I didn’t know what to do about it because we haven’t spoken for 2 weeks since she invited me and my husband over and I said no.  I have such little contact with her these days that her sending me such a large amount of money felt very uncomfortable and from everything I have read and learnt about narcissists, money is used as a really powerful manipulation/control tactic.  So much went through my head about why she was sending it and what I should do.  I tried to give it back but she sent me a message which told me she wasn’t trying to buy me, that the money had no strings attached, that there was no ulterior motive.. (weird things for her to say right?).  I told her I didn’t want to be seen as shallow or a money-grabber and said that last time she gave me money she told people that she resented me for not returning it when we fell out and people thought badly of me and I did not want a repeat of that.  Anyway, long story short I ended up keeping the money but it feels…. loaded I guess.  Despite what she has said and it is playing on my mind.

Anyway I have to go now, I might try to write later if I get time.  Any insights you guys have about any of this would be really welcomed and appreciated!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dream that knocked me for six

Ugh.

Last night I had the most horrendous dream. I remember there was arguing between my mother and I, and that my sister was very upset and begging me to make up with her. I refused to because she still hadn’t validated me at all and was still trying to act like nothing had happened.

Next, she had wrapped a rope around her neck and jumped into a hole of water in the ground (a bit like a small circular pond), she had tried to kill herself. Somehow, and I can’t remember how now, I ran and pulled the rope and my sister out and she was just about alive, I untied the rope from her neck and she collapsed onto me. She was sobbing and so was I, although I was so scared that I was shouting at her in anger, that I couldn’t believe she would do that. She was totally broken and now so was I.

I felt horrendous grief and fear and sadness but also so much guilt. If I had made up with my mother, she wouldn’t be feeling so desperate. I could have saved her from nearly killing herself and yet I was nearly the cause of her suicide!

I woke up from this dream in the night and was sweating and frightened but fell back to sleep somehow.

Today though…. well today has been so, so tough. I have felt such a sadness all day. I feel very low and lethargic. I feel like I could burst into tears at any moment. I’ve thought about my sister constantly as you might imagine.

I know it’s only a dream but god it’s had such a horrible impact on me.

So what does it mean? Is it symbolic of my fear that my sister really will do something to herself? I mean I wouldn’t say that was impossible as she has always suffered with depression (even though she currently claims she’s managed to put it all behind her…. cough!).

Is it symbolic that she wants or needs me to save her?

Is it symbolic of my guilt? My worry for her?

When she came over last week with her Dad and my fiancé asked her if she would still want a relationship with me even if I never spoke to our mother again she said something quietly like “oh god”. She cried a lot, several times. She clearly wants my mother to stop crying and she clearly wants all the drama and fighting to stop. She’s not alone.

Today I feel utterly defeated, low, fed up, depressed (not properly but you know). I feel so exhausted from everything.

I don’t have the energy for all of this. It’s messages that trigger me, cause me to feel such huge anxiety, play on my mind, make me feel scared and nervous. There’s seeing people who are intimidating and of course invalidating, there’s the guilt I feel towards the people I leave behind like my sister… there’s the guilt I feel (rightly or wrongly) towards my mother who, despite her abuse is so personality disordered that she has no idea what’s going on or what she has done – who, in her own way, in her own head, is grieving for me somehow…

and then there’s me grieving the loss of being able to “get” at my mother in the way I’ve always needed and wanted to. My grief that half of my so called family are so invalidating and turning on me for having feelings…

The fear every time the doorbell rings.

The fear that someone will die whilst this is going on and I’ll hate myself. Perhaps I feel it would be my fault… just like the dream.

It’s all just a bit too much for me today. Today it is just overwhelming me. Today I don’t feel like I can cope or that I have the strength to carry on.

And annoyingly, this weekend I had felt quite pleased that I had managed to proactively make plans. I saw friends, walked in nature, celebrated one of my brother’s birthdays, started packing my house, felt proud of my weight loss etc – my fiancé even said how well I was doing despite it all.

Today I’m not doing well at all.

The Ambush and The Text

I have wanted to sit and write for days, particularly today but I have felt way too tired to actually do it.  It is ten to 7 now and I still feel like I could fall asleep as I type this but I also really need to get some thoughts and feelings out of me and onto the page in the hope it helps me to feel a bit less stressed out.

On Sunday my sister text me asking if she could come over to my house, to talk to me and my fiancé because she felt “shit” about our falling out.  I was shocked but pleased that she asked this and told her I was very glad and that yes, of course she could. We made plans for her to come over Wednesday evening.  An hour or so later she text saying that she had seen her dad (for info, not my dad) and that he had a Christmas gift for me and my fiancé and so could he come along.  Instantly I worked out that he must be the person behind her asking to come over, as clearly my mother wouldn’t encourage us to get along – she would hate that.  I responded kindly but said we should sort our issues out alone first, and that we could make plans to see him the following week.  She replied saying OK.

Wednesday night came around and I was feeling a bit apprehensive about my sister’s visit.  The doorbell rang just as I was dishing up our dinner and so my fiancé went to let her in, however the next voice I heard was her dad’s “I hope you don’t mind me coming along” and then my sister’s voice saying “I’m staying at Dad’s”.  I was not impressed by this at all and I was (probably naively) totally unprepared for him being there and so felt a bit nervous and on the back-foot.  I felt annoyed with her for going against what I had said and inviting her dad anyway.

They came in, made small talk whilst we finished our dinner and then we made them each a cup of tea.  My fiancé then went outside to have a cigarette.  The second he went outside, her dad said to me “Right, look here, I have come over because I need to have a word with you. I am very concerned by your behaviour recently. I respect that this is your house and so you have every right to tell me you don’t want me to carry on”.  I think I probably rolled my eyes at this because I knew instantly the tone of the conversation was going to be “look here, pack it in’ and I wasn’t wrong.

He then started to say, “I do understand that counselling helps some people to deal with demons and their feelings about certain things but…” and I showed my frustration by rolling my eyes and a deep sigh. I was angry already.  He then said “counselling is like a cancer, it will eat away at you from the inside”.  He said it was “a scar that I was picking at needlessly and needed to leave alone”.

ANGER.

I then stopped him and said, I think we will stop this conversation here and wait for my fiancé to come back into the house because I think it is rather unfair that you’ve come over to my house, against my wishes and then waited for him to leave the room so you and my sister could gang up on me and start attacking my very private business, MY counselling which was none of his business.  I guess I was a bit rude at this point because I had reached new levels of frustration and I was so unprepared and shocked that I guess my anger was coming in as self-protection, rightly or wrongly.

My fiancé walked back inside and he spoke directly to him and said I was just saying that I need to have a talk with Twink about her behaviour and actions recently and that I am very concerned for her – is that okay with you? My fiancé said he was happy for us to have a conversation but would absolutely not tolerate any arguments.  He agreed. He then carried on his rant about counselling, I repeated it was none of his business – he then looked me up and down raising his eyebrows and said “What is wrong with you? I have never seen so much anger in you! You are so defensive!”.  I snapped back at him, yes I was angry and defensive because he had come into my home and started to insult and attack my private things that he “knew nothing about!”.

It went from bad to worse after this point. He said he had been speaking to my mother (well, durr) and how she had told him what I had done and said recently – that we hadn’t spoken since October and that I was so brainwashed and angry and defensive blah bah blah.. he started to tell me  how I needed to “draw a line under it and move on”.  He went on to say all the usual crap about how he knew I “didn’t have the best childhood” but that I was now an adult with my own family so it was time to stop this nonsense.

He said I had to have my mother at my wedding. That even if I invited her to my wedding and then never spoke to her again, then that is what I should do. I asked him why? Why should I? For whose benefit? I then told him, in a pointless attempt at justifying myself, that my mother had been badmouthing my fiancé for months behind our backs saying that he was controlling and manipulative and that I wasn’t the real me, that I wasn’t happy.   He said well she may or may not have said that and I said well my sister and my aunt had told me and I know she said it because since we have fallen out, she’s implied it herself in messages! I also said when I used to go to her house, she would wait until my fiancé was out of the room and would look at me and say “so how are things really? implying that I was putting on a happy front for his sake.  She would tell me that he didn’t love me, that if he did we would be married by now, have had children by now. She said he would always end up going back to his ex and that his children would always come before me (which is totally wrong in her view – as demonstrated by my childhood!).

His response? “Well your nan said some nasty things about me when I was married to your mum, just ignore it” – Errrrr how about no? He also then said to my fiance something about “his wife” and I angrily corrected him by saying “EX wife!”.  How rude.

He then said to my fiancé “How do you feel about having her mother and stepfather at the wedding?”.  My fiancé answered very sarcastically “Oh well yes I would LOVE to have people like that at my wedding!”.  Her dad, visibly annoyed said “be serious” and he said that no, he absolutely did not want them there.  My sister’s dad’s response to this was…. “Well the day is about Twink anyway, not you!”.  How fucking rude. I corrected him but he spoke over me and disagreed.

My sister then piped up and said to me “Mum has been crying every day for months now, you’re not the one having to deal with that. It’s okay for you, you don’t live there but I do!” (so effectively: make up with her for my sake).  She went on to say that our nan was ill and our aunty having radiotherapy and that poor mum couldn’t take it.  She then said “Mum spoke to me about the abuse stuff (this is a reference to the sexual abuse I suffered at the hand’s of her then boyfriend that does not get mentioned – EVER), she continued “and it’s not that she doesn’t believe you, BUT…” I widened my eyes and thought I may well smack her in the face depending on her next sentence.  My fiancé jumped in and said very firmly “Be very careful what you say next!” and she then burst into tears and covered her face.

Her dad interjected and said that sometimes people are in denial and that my mother may know it happened, and believe me but not want to face it and that I just needed to accept and understand that. I shouted back at him, why do I have to just accept that?? I burst into tears and said you have no idea how it feels to tell a parent that you’ve been abused for them to say they don’t believe you.  You have NO fucking idea.  He shouted back at me that actually, he did know how I felt and that I knew nothing about his childhood and he was actually abused in many ways.  I cried hard and said why is everything about me letting it go, me accepting it, me getting over it – why is nobody at my mother’s house shouting at her to deal with it, to apologise??!!

He said I know you want an apology from your mother but.. and I interrupted him and said you told me on the phone Xmas Eve that you fully understood why I needed and wanted an apology from her AND what’s more, you told me you haven’t spoken to your own mother for 20 years for the same reason!!! I called him a hypocrite and he said it was… “different”.  I sarcastically laughed and said of course it was.

I  told him he was unbelievable considering he has slagged my mother off for my entire life and yet here he was, fighting her battles for her. I can’t understand it. He said he wasn’t that he was trying to help. PAH!!! He also denied ever slagging her off – gaslighting?

At some point in all of this I said firmly that I was no longer willing to discuss my therapy or my relationship with my mother.  He seemed totally miffed by this.  My fiancé then said to my sister, okay so Twink’s rules are that she wants to have a relationship with you and that she wants you two to not discuss your mother or her counselling.  Can you do that? My sister said she doesn’t believe sisters should have “rules”.  I said well very clearly WE did because look at the mess we are in!!! My fiancé said to her, what are your rules for Twink?? She just cried again and said it was weird and that it was all shit.

My fiancé then said to both of them, IF Twink never speaks to her mother again, IF that is what she decides to do, and that is none of our business, will you still be able to have a relationship with her? He asked my sister first who said yes instantly.  He then asked her dad who hesitated and said “well, I’m not sure.. I” and I sneered, unbelievable.  This sudden loyalty to his ex-wife who left him for another man, took away every single possession he had, stopped him seeing his daughter (and me) and told us both how he physically beat her repeatedly – causing us to be petrified of him was now saying he wasn’t sure he could have a relationship with ME because of my private row with her. WTF???

After a bit more invalidating he stood up and said “come on, we are going” to my sister and off they went.  I’ve not heard from them since.

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When they left, I broke down into tears but I was angry not sad. I was furious in fact. My entire body was tingling and my legs were weak. I was hot. It is the angriest I think I have ever felt in my life. How dare he?! I felt utterly attacked, ganged up on and invalidated.  The invalidation (now that I even know what that is) is the hardest thing I am up against at the moment. I am being invalidated from every angle and it is awful. You spend your life blaming yourself for being unlovable or faulty somehow, get yourself to therapy and dig deep, do some hellishly painful work – you fight against the defences that you’ve put up and finally realise it wasn’t you – that there was a lot of dysfunction and narcissim for example… and then everyone tells you to shut up and that you are wrong again. It’s mind-fucking.

There is such an obvious lack of empathy and care for my feelings about the way I have felt growing up – and now as an adult.

I was furious with my sister for going against me saying not to bring him and bringing him anyway. That is so unfair.  Ignoring me saying no and bringing him anyway because she wanted back-up. I’d understand that if she was a child herself or even if it was my idea to invite her over where she may feel ganged up on, but it was her suggetion and I took it at face value that it would be the 3 of us and that she would resepct my wishes. What a boundary invasion. I have some compassion for her, I know she just wants everything cleared up and she clearly thought her dad would help but boy was she wrong, he just made everything much worse.  I give her credit however for saying she would still have a realationship with me even if I didn’t ever speak to my mother again  but although I belive her, I doubt how possible my mother would make that.

I told my fiancé that I was so very disappointed. He had been good to me when I was younger, I have nice memories of normal days out and beds made up on the sofa for us to eat sweets and watch films.  He was my bit of normal.. I mean Christ, the guy applied through the Courts for custody of me!! He knew my mother was shit.  I once ran away from home and hid out at his house and he let me stay there telling me I never had to go home again if I was that unhappy there.  He always referred to me as his daughter – he tells everyone he has two daughters and I am not even his daughter.  What happened to all of that? Disappointed doesn’t do justice to my feelings but it’s the only word I can come up with.

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So, after all of this, as if that wasn’t enough whilst I was out with my old work friends last night I checked my phone which had been in my bag for hours and there was a message on the screen from my mother.

Oh God.

I opened it and read what she said and I felt so weird. I don’t know the feeling exactly. I guess I felt some kind of relief that she had finally acknowledged I had hurt and pain but frustration that she still wasn’t relating any of that hurt or pain to herself.  I found the message weird, it wasn’t like her at all. She spoke of wrapping me in her arms and hugging me – the thing I have wanted my ENTIRE LIFE.  A mother’s warm embrace. A protective and loving cuddle.  Protection, safety, love, nurturing.  She even signed the text off with how she loved me billions and included the word “Mum”.  Again, not something she has ever done before. It was like a different person had written it.  Confusion.

So I did what any normal, healthy person would do and drank myself into oblivion resulting in me being sick on the way home and again when I got into bed and getting 3 hours sleep.  Yeah, not a good move and one I feel pretty ashamed about today.  I know better than that.  I did what she does and tried to drink my feelings away and ignore it all.  I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, we all make mistakes, I won’t do it again that’s for sure.

I’ve been trying to work out what the text is about.  It has confused me. I kind of know in my head that it is just another, a different, tactic to try to get me back.  She’s tried ignoring me, sending aggressive and nasty messages, telling me she is walking away now and to effectively have a nice life.. and now this. This is probably the worst of them all because it’s like it is dangling a carrot of empathy and validation and affection in front of me saying “come back and I will be affectionate and I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted and needed” and yet, it isn’t genuine because I can’t help but feel that 1) she’s gone from attacking me for being brainwashed to this and also although she acknowledges my hurt and pain, she makes no attempt to make that better in any meaningful way – like telling me she is sorry for example.  So where/who does she think this hurt and pain has come from? I wonder if it’s a dig at my mental health? Is she trying to say she knows I am in a bad place mentally and wants to make me better? Therefore telling me again that I am crazy and wrong and brainwashed????

I can see that the use of the word mum in the text was just for effect. Like she is reminding me of her status in my life. MUM.  She who should be obeyed.  Your MUM, the one that loves you most etc etc….

Clearly the fact the message came the day after the pathetic ambush/intervention thing is no coincidence. I mean, my sister’s Dad admitted he had been speaking with my mother and so he was being a flying monkey – doing her bidding for her.  Like everyone does.  But what did he say??  I imagine that he said I am clearly not right, that I was extremely aggressive and defensive and she will be saying “see, I told you, she is unwell”.  What happened to the nice girl?

AARRRGGHHH God that makes me so angry. It’s the injustice of it. Somehow I have become the villain and she the victim.  It feels as though someone says they were abused in some way or hurt somehow and the response is, we need proof or she didn’t mean it but the real villain simply says “it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it” and everyone goes “okay, we believe you”.

It really hurts. It is VERY confusing and as I said to T today, it is seriously exhausting. I feel so done in from it all. I just want to be left alone and there is constant shit coming from all angles.

The only thing I am pleased about is that I must have got stronger because I was able to stick up for myself, able to set my boundaries regardless of people’s reactions to them and what’s more important I think is that I have not wanted to give in to keep these people happy.  If anything, it’s just made me more angry and more determined.  The dysfunction is so clear and it’s awful.  I know it is a very childlike statement but it is all so unfair and all I keep thinking is that nobody is genuinely looking out for me in this – it is all about keeping up appearances, keeping my mother happy, giving people an easy life and basically that I am upsetting the balance and so need to shut up complaining.  How does that happen? Proper victim blaming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sliding Doors

Has anyone seen the film Sliding Doors? I watched it when I was about 11 years old for the first time, I remember this clearly because there was a sex scene in it and I was watching it with my Nan and remember feeling extremely awkward!

The general concept of the film is about how life can go in different directions.  It begins with a story line of what happens when a character DOES make the train, and another storyline where the character DOES NOT catch the train.  From that point, their life goes in two different directions.

I have been thinking about this film today because I find myself wondering a lot these last few days how my life could have gone.  Not so much in general terms but specifically around the events with my mother and her NPD.  What would have happened if I had stayed the Golden Child and remained enmeshed with her – what would my life look like right now?

I’ve been reflecting on my life a lot since writing the Goodbye Mother letter and today I was thinking how the first 18 years or so my mother fell into the category of “Ignoring Narcissistic Mother” but when I became 18 and old enough to drink and smoke and go to clubs and date men and share clothes with her, idolise her… she fitted better in the category of “Engulfing Narcissistic Mother” – this is the stage where the control and enmeshment began.

Now what would have happened if I hadn’t met my current fiancé and started therapy? Would I still be enmeshed with her? Would I be a narcissist myself by now? Maybe I would have met another man but not started therapy and therefore never realised the dynamic I was in! Perhaps I would have met a narcissistic man or more of the same type I used to meet, emotionally unavailable.  Perhaps I would have spent my entire life trying to fix them and have the happy ending I never got with my mother.  It’s a sad thought.

The “storyline” I find myself in now is one where I am playing the starring role of “Narcissistic Mother’s Scapegoat”. I am not only her scapegoat mind, but also my sister’s who is playing the lead role of “Golden Child” and, not only that but I think potentially “Narcissistic Golden Child”.

There are basically two roles you can play when you have a mother as narcissistic as mine.  The Scapegoat or the Golden Child (you could also be a lost child but there is only two of us).  The perks of being the Golden Child are that you have the narcissistic mother’s protection.  She will agree with you (in public at least), she will tell you that you are “just like her” and if she is anything like my own mother, tell you that you are in fact a “mini me”. Now considering how much she thinks of herself, this is meant as the highest type of compliment. The downside to being the GC is that you are not allowed to be your true, authentic self, have your own (differing) opinions on things or allowed to say no or argue with her.  You are no longer a different person, a person with differing interests, hobbies, thoughts etc – you are enmeshed and an extension of the narcissist.  Also just because you are picked as GC doesn’t mean you are no longer abused in any way, you still are, it is just much more subtle and hard to detect.  In my case when I was GC my mother would regularly tell me how I needed to lose weight or change my hair, do my make up differently, shop in different shops and become more fashionable – but she would tell you that she loved you and this was all for your benefit! She just wanted you to make the best of yourself!

The downsides to being the Scapegoat are many: The narcissist and whoever her enablers are, perhaps siblings or step-parents project anything and everything negative onto you.  YOU are the sole cause of anything bad in the family or in life generally.  You are trouble, evil, mentally unstable.  It is VERY hard to have a strong enough sense of self/self-esteem to not start to feel guilty about all this crap that you are told repeatedly is your fault.  There is the gaslighting, the narcissistic family will make you doubt yourself and your memories and version of events.  At some stage you do think to yourself, “shit, they can’t all be wrong can they?”.  You start to think that if ALL of them have one story and you have a different story… well, maybe it is you after all? That is tough.  The gaslighting is the stage I’m at right now.  Apparently this is really stereotypical for a narcissist when confronted but my mother (and sister) are telling me that I “have gone fucking crazy”, am “brainwashed” and that they are not sure “what is going on in my head right now”.  Gaslighting at it’s finest.   This causes cognitive dissonance.. BIG TIME.

There is inevitably the fear element as well.  I struggled with this BIG TIME.  The fear and the guilt were definitely my biggest struggles.  There is also something really hard about admitting that you, adult you, is scared of your parent.  I DID NOT want to admit that I was scared of her, of what she would say, what she would do, of upsetting her.  What would the consequences me? How would she punish me? It was all very illogical but the fear was real.

And lastly, the worst one for me at present – you are isolated and ostracised from anyone that enables the narcissist or is scared of them or perhaps equally as abusive as them.  I currently find myself watching to see which member of my family is next to be “disappointed” with me or cut me off. Narcissists cannot and do not accept people disagreeing with them. That truly is the ultimate betrayal to them.  You are on their side (yes pathetic) or you are against them and that is that.  You will be shocked at the amount of people who “side” with the narcissist, even ones that know stories or have seen evidence of their abuse in the past.  It is shockingly shit and nothing can prepare you for it.  My sister was my mother’s scapegoat for years until we swapped places and she used to suffer with depression because of it – yet she is very happy abusing me right now and ganging up with my narcissistic mother against me.

That is a long and bleak list of downsides to being a scapegoat I know but what about the perks?

Anyone who finds themselves in the role of the scapegoat will be naturally empathetic and sensitive.  The fact that they find themselves in that role shows that they are a truth-seeker and more importantly, I think, they have somehow held on to their authentic true self and believe me that is not an easy thing to do against a narcissist and her army.  But the clear winner here has to be the pure fact that the scapegoat escapes the dysfunctional family – they ESCAPE!! They get away from playing roles and being gaslighted or projected onto.  They escape the FOG – the fear, obligation and guilt.  They no longer have to be on guard or put on a mask, a fake self to try to stay safe around the narcissistic/dysfunctional family.  They can heal and finally be validated for all of their struggles and pain.  They can have a kind and empathic witness emotionally hold them as they navigate their way through all the grief and pain and begin to heal from the years of abuse.

I saw a meme today which said it should be called the “Escape Goat” rather than the “Scapegoat” which I think is perfect.

Anyway, I feel at peace today for all of the reasons above and other reasons which I find harder to articulate that I would never wish to swap roles and be the GC again. Never.  Being the Scapegoat is emotionally very difficult, it can be extremely lonely and draining but I honestly felt like something was missing from my life until quite recently – I spent my life unconsciously desperate for approval, for affection and to be told that I was good enough.  I was always trying to fill the painful mother hole/wound that was still raw as hell and now, all of a sudden, I am seeing things differently.  Now I am truly seeing and believing fully that it wasn’t ever me or my fault.  She has a personality disorder.  I was not too sensitive, too needy, pathetic, boring, stupid, fat, brainwashed or evil.

This sounds a bit egotistical but I feel like I must have more strength than I’ve ever given myself credit for or was even aware of myself.  I have (thanks to T) been able to fight against her abuse, lies and punishment.

I feel lucky in a strange way, not lucky that I had to go through any of it of course and I do still grieve for the fantasy mother and probably will for a long time, but my life could have gone the other way, like in Sliding Doors – I could have never got away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Golden Child In Therapy

How did I, an ex Golden Child end up in therapy… and how did I end up a Scapegoat?

I guess the answer to that is in the question itself isn’t it?  I ended up a scapegoat BECAUSE I ended up in therapy.  What I am actually thinking about is the fact that it is much more common for the scapegoated child of a narcissist to end up leaving the dysfunction and toxic mother than the golden child and yet I was the GC so how did it happen?

I guess it mainly came about because my romantic relationships were dreadful.  I was constantly in relationships. One after the other, literally.  Right from a child on the playground I was on the look-out for a boyfriend.  I guess I copied my mother like all kids do.

I picked the wrong men.  As in, for me.  Looking back I can see that I was picking the commitment phobic men, the avoidantly attached ones which for someone like me who has an anxious attachment style is a match made in hell, not heaven.  Those men kept me constantly triggered and anxious. I never felt secure and relaxed because even when things were going well, it was just a matter of time before it all fell apart. I was constantly fearing abandonment and in many cases, I was right to.  Or perhaps I pushed them away with my “neediness” I don’t know.

Because of my insecurity, anxiety and neediness in these relationships, I thought that there was clearly something very wrong with me and that I needed help.  I wanted to be fixed so that I wasn’t such a nightmare girlfriend and I wanted to feel like everybody else seemed to feel, calm and relaxed in their relationships and not a ball of nerves and so I took myself off to therapy.

I won’t go into what happened with me leaving and coming back and quitting and starting again here as that is for another post but I soon found out that T thought my mother suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and all of a sudden my cares about being insecure in relationships took a back seat.  I had no idea then what attachment styles were, what mine was or what relevance that all had on me and my life.

SO that is how this ex-Golden Child came into therapy whilst my sister, the ex-scapegoat didn’t despite hating her family life and being very often seriously depressed.  And now, because of what I have learnt about the dysfunction of my enmeshment with my controlling mother, I began to pull away emotionally at first, and then physically and as you know, we are now not speaking at all.  My sister is now Golden Child, she is living my old role becoming more and more enmeshed with my mother and I am the scapegoat watching from a distance.

Mental.  I almost want to say thanks to all of the avoidantly attached men that I dated, for our disastrous relationships and for getting me to therapy, else I would have never got away from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts, Feelings & General pondering

Hi guys. It’s Saturday evening here, just gone 7pm as I sit to type this.  My fiancé is currently taking the kids back to their mum and I am finally sat on the sofa with a clean, tidy house and the only sound I can hear other than my typing, is the dishwasher. Heaven.

This morning we went to view a house.  The house is in a location that is new to me and I was pretty certain before we even left that it wasn’t “the one”.  On paper it was lovely, it had 4 bedrooms, an en-suite, a garage and it was close to the train station, shops, supermarket and gym.  What more could you want, right? BUT it is also MUCH further away from T (more on that later).  Anyway, when we got there, the house from the outside was pretty amazing. It looked like a house I would imagine rich people living in and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want a bit of that? LOL.  Inside the house was nice! It was big, lots of space, it had a utility room where I could do the washing and ironing and keep the hamster etc  and it had 3(!) toilets.  A downstairs toilet off of the utility room, the family bathroom and then the en-suite.  I have ALWAYS wanted an en-suite, always but even more since becoming a stepmum.  Showering at the weekend is a nightmare here and sometimes I really do crave just ten minutes of peace and quiet whilst getting ready so an en-suite would be lovely.

Anyway, cutting a long story short, 2 of the kids and myself loved the house.  One of the kids, the eldest boy who is nearly 16 was visibly miserable and said he hated it. I could feel my back go up.  “What is there to hate?” I said.  He simply shrugged and walked off head hanging low. Grrrr.. this annoyed me because without sounding cruel, the kids are only with us at weekends, we have to live there every day of the week, it’s us that have to pay the rent and bills and us that need to find a house big enough for them to have bedrooms that sit empty most of the week (slight bug bare of mine – can you tell).  We also have to make sure we live in an area close enough to them for pick ups and drop offs etc, not to mention near a train station so we can commute to the City for work.

Later at home, I got even more annoyed as I overheard my fiancé and said eldest boyo discussing the house and heard my fiancé saying that it was only the first house we had seen, that yes, it did have a lot of windows and the garage wasn’t quite what he wanted (the GARAGE???).  He then added that he had seen another house that HE would go and look at in the week. Cue me being pretty damn pissed off.  A while later I sent him some Whatsapps to this effect and he apologised.  We haven’t discussed the house yet, I am sure we will when he gets back, but without even having the discussion I know the house has been vito’d.

On a more positive note, we have a viewing Monday evening for another house in the same area that also has a garage and an en-suite so we shall see.

Now about the area.  Currently I drive about 20 minutes to T’s and it only takes me about 15 on the way home as it is late and everyone’s home from work by then.  According to Google Maps on my phone, the new house to T’s is a 30 minute drive using the fastest route, or a 33/34 minute drive going other ways.  It is all on busy dual carriageways and I would have to… “merge” agghhhhh.  Okay, so in theory it is only 10 minutes more driving and really that isn’t the end of the world is it? But that is now, at nearly 7.30pm on a Saturday.  The journey in rush hour on therapy day says 35-55 minutes, depending on traffic.  Eugh.

I won’t lie, it is more about my nerves than the time it would take. I am not the most confident driver and I only passed my test in September of 2016 so have only been driving just over a year.  Enough excuses yet?  On the flip side, I keep thinking, I would learn.  It would get less scary and could potentially make me a much more confident driver, that now I can drive, I shouldn’t limit myself to just local roads and short trips because well, what’s the point in having the freedom of being able to drive?

I have thought about this a lot recently because the first 6-9 months after passing my test, I was very keen to drive everywhere. I wanted to drive to loads of places, no matter how far away and then something changed and I don’t know what because I haven’t had an accident (touch wood), but I lost my confidence and now I find myself dreading driving anywhere or doing what I used to do when I first passed and planning the route in my head, visualising it before I would attempt to go anywhere.  Why?? I have no idea.

Mother/Sister

Moving on from the house move, my Facebook “reactivated” itself at some point, I don’t know when but my aunty text me to say she had seen my page back up this morning.  I went on there to close it back down but found myself snooping on my mother’s and sister’s pages before I did.  I saw that last night there was a party for a family friend and that everyone had gone.  When I say “everyone” what I mean is, my mother, stepdad, sister, her boyfriend and then the aunty, uncle, cousin and her husband who all think I am a “loose cannon”.  Unfortunately they were all there 3 years ago for Part 1 of confront mother on her shit parenting skills. It got very messy and needless to say, I was made to look like the bad guy and my mother the innocent victim.

The thing I noticed more than anything else was that my sister was there. My sister never used to spend any time with the family like this, especially at parties etc but recently my sister is constantly with my mother and whoever else living it up.  I hate this.  I hate it for several reasons. I hate it because it isn’t who my sister is and she has changed, I hate it because I admit I feel a bit jealous and left out – not from my mother or anyone but I haven’t seen my sister since I fell out with my mother and despite a million attempts at seeing her, she either doesn’t reply or cancels on me last-minute, just as she did 3 times over Christmas.  I’ve now given up trying to see her, I have a present here for her and she can’t even be arsed to pop over and get it.  She hasn’t even apologised for not trying to fix a new date with me and then just to make it worse, last night I made a group on WhatsApp for my bridesmaids trying to get a date for us to go dress shopping and my sister said she would send dates in an hour or so.. and 5 hours later she hadn’t so I reminded her… and now 24 hours later, surprise surprise, she still hasn’t.

My sister suddenly going out drinking and to parties etc with my mother is no real surprise. It is what the Golden Child does in my family. It  is what I did for many years.  My mother loves the child that is fun and will get drunk, smoke, sing karaoke and play inappropriate drinking games.  Just like she does. And my mother DOESN’T love the child who is “boring” and doesn’t do those things.

The roles have been reversed, the tables have turned.  I did that, that was my choice and I am pleased, really.. but it still bothers me a bit.  That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it.

I’ve seen more selfies of my mother and sister on her Instagram in the last few months than ever before.  There are photos of them on Xmas Day, NYE and this party last night that obviously I didn’t get told about or invited to.  Part of me questions if it is being done on purpose to make me feel excluded and jealous like my sister did all the years that I was the Golden Child and then I think, nah… she is just really happy my mother is treating her so well and is enjoying it.  I should be pleased for her, but I can’t be because I know how it has effected me being the chosen one.

Last night’s Dream

Last night I had a dream that there were two cars and one of the cars drove up fast behind me, lifting me into the air and throwing me across wherever I was until another car came and did the same thing until I was thrown into a wall.  I had injured my leg and had a huge wound, a chunk of my leg tissue had come out and was on the floor. Someone picked it up so that the hospital could sew it back in (gross I know).  I was crying in the dream and in pain.  A while later in the dream I was trying to phone my fiancé who wasn’t there and I had gone a bit numb.  I felt like I had given up to an extent. I looked down and all the blood which was all over me had turned blue.

Google says that dreaming of blood symbolises “feeling of being hurt or injured and of losing energy or the strength that enlivens you. But blood can represent pain, but also passions, deep feelings. It can refer to things that are deeply felt“.  Regarding dreaming of wounds, it says “something painful is being repressed” and “On the legs or feet, the message may be about the ability to move forward and feel empowered”.

I woke up from this dream feeling sad.  My fiancé, completely oblivious to my dream or my mood came and gave me a hug and I could feel tears prickling my eyes but he didn’t notice and then went downstairs.  I guess I kinda sucked the tears and the sadness back in and had to go and get the kids their breakfast.  I’m not really sure why I felt so sad waking up from that dream because at that stage I didn’t know about the party, perhaps it is just the sadness that my sister is so distant with me and is making it so painfully obvious that she doesn’t care – about Christmas or my wedding and that is shit.  She repeatedly makes it clear how little she cares about me and what can I do about it? My sister has a short fuse and if I told her I was getting annoyed or confronted her in ANY way, that would be it, she would use it as an excuse to let rip about something and part of me wonders if she is doing it on purpose so that I give her an excuse not to see or speak to me anymore.  I think that perhaps now she has her elevated position as Golden Child, she doesn’t want me around or coming back to potentially push her back to scapegoat? Perhaps she knows my mother won’t want her speaking to me and is waiting for a good excuse to be able to cut the ties with me and please my mother even more?? It’s all speculation after all.

Another reason moving half an hour further away is that I will have even more distance between me, my mother, stepdad and sister. Whilst things are like this, and God knows how long that will be…. it seems like a good idea.  At least I wouldn’t have to worry about seeing them or bumping into them I guess.  Is that running away? Perhaps.

Oh, and finally one final thought before I stop banging on….. I realised the other day that there are some comparisons between the way I fell out with my mother and the way I reacted when T sent me that text by accident.  In both situations I got angry and withdrew the only difference was that after a week or so, when I had calmed down enough, I wrote to T and explained how I was feeling trusting that she would be able to discuss it with me without being angry or attacking me – clearly I haven’t done that with my mother because it is pointless.  I’ve been wondering if that is wrong of me?

 

[EDIT: Since publishing, I read back the part about my dream and one car barging me and then the other one and wondered if perhaps the cars doing the damage are symbolic of my mother and then my sister.  Mother started, sister took over from where she left off.  Both hurt me? just throwing it out there.]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no more fight left today

This is a warning that I am having some kind of melt down right now and this post is likely to be full of anger and rage and sadness and Christ knows what else. Maybe stop reading now if you are feeling delicate yourself.

I don’t know what’s happening but I am having a really horrible body reaction to how overwhelmed with anxiety, stress and anger I am feeling. I’ve never felt anything like it. My heart is beating out of my chest, my body is tingling and feels weak, I feel sick, my stomach is going crazy and I feel kind of dizzy and spaced out.  A minute ago I felt like if I took a sip of the very large glass of wine I have poured, I might be sick.  My entire body is triggered or something. It feels AWFUL.

If you have been reading lately, you will know the background around the shit storm that is happening at work.  Yesterday I was offered a new position within the company and I felt such intense relief that I could get out of that department and away from those two girls making me feel so shit. At 8pm last night, I got a call from a woman in HR to tell me that she couldn’t agree to me leaving until a replacement had been found and that it would take at least a month.  I totally broke down on the phone to her. I sobbed. I was unable to speak. I totally lost it.  She obviously needed me to tell her what has been going on and so I did, I didn’t have much choice by that stage and so I was honest. I told her how those two girls had been making me feel and that I couldn’t do that for another month and that actually, I seriously would have to leave the firm if that was the case. That wasn’t meant as blackmail – I really would have left.

Luckily once she witnessed the state I was in on the phone, she agreed I could leave my current team this Friday for the Xmas break and start my new department on 2 January.  I came off of that call utterly broken, but relieved.

Today I went into work, which believe me is not easy at the moment.  The 2 girls didn’t speak to me, nothing new there, but I felt more awkward than ever because I knew they probably knew. Later I was called into the head of the department’s office. He is a cold man at the best of times and he wasn’t very supportive. He asked me what was going on, I told him in brief detail that the department wasn’t for me and that it wasn’t working out.  He said “you seemed happy enough at the xmas meal last week” which REALLY pissed me off. What was he implying? That I am lying? Making the whole thing up? I snapped back at him “That was two weeks ago and last week was awful”.  He was blank-faced and even when tears began to fall down my face and I couldn’t get my words out, he just glared at me.  I felt like dying.

When the “meeting” was over, I left his office and the 2 girls were directly outside the room (which by the way is glass so they would have seen me and probably heard me which is just great..).  I walked to the bathroom where I, yet again, collapsed into tears.  I didn’t ever want to come out.

I then got a text message from my ‘aunty’.  She isn’t my blood aunty, but has been in my life since literally the day I was born. She was like a second mother to be growing up. I used to stay at her house all the time with her two boys who I refer to as my cousins.  My mother used to go off gallivanting with her latest bloke and I would stay there for weeks at a time. She was always so loving to me, I’ve always, always loved her.  Anyway, she said she needed to speak to me.  I knew instantly this had to be about my mother because she doesn’t often text me and she never says she “needs” to speak to me. Initially I thought she was going to be a flying monkey and was going to tell me my mum was upset or something and my back was up.  I was wrong.

I spoke to her on the phone at lunch time and what she had to tell me was that she has fallen out with my mother on a HUGE scale because my mother told her she is not to speak to me anymore. I can’t even believe I am typing this.

My aunt was very honest, she admitted that initially when this happened, which was apparently about 6 weeks ago, she said she rarely spoke to me and my mother said to her “If you speak to TT, please tell me” and she admitted that she agreed with that.  Well, you may remember it was this aunt’s birthday party a few weeks after me and my mother fell out and I knew I couldn’t go unless I wanted to see my mother, so I text her to say I couldn’t make it because of what had happened to the kids, and because I had fallen out with my mother and that we weren’t speaking.  She replied at the time to say she was shocked to hear we weren’t speaking and that she was sorry I couldn’t make it.  Well, she also admitted, she sent those messages to my mother when she next requested evidence of our communications.

Apparently my mother then rang her Friday night just gone to ask her if she had spoken to me and she told her that she had text me recently to say she was sick with the flu, but would send me some dates that we could get together as soon as she was better (this was because I asked when I could see her as I couldn’t make her party).  Apparently with this, my mother went APE SHIT at her and they ended up having a really horrible argument on the phone where my mother told her she should be loyal to her and not to me and that she does not expect her to speak to me at all.  I don’t know exactly what else was said but my aunty said that she told my mother she had done nothing wrong and that my mother wasn’t having any of it.

My aunt said she slept on this argument and then Sunday sent my mother a very long message which said………. wait for this…. that she thinks she needs to learn about sexual abuse and the implications it can have because she thinks this is where all the issues started.  That the fact my mother couldn’t and didn’t handle me telling her what happened to me is the start of our problems and said to my mum, that the same thing happened with her and her mother when she spoke out about her own sexual abuse. GOBSMACKED.

She said the message wasn’t aggressive or nasty or blaming, but that she said in it, she thinks if my mum were able to help me deal with it in a better way, we would be closer and that she thinks my mum’s reaction to me telling her what had happened has caused the anger and resentment in me which has led to this huge fall out between us.  I interjected here and said that our problems go way further back than that abuse.  I was 14 when that happened, she had been hurting me since the day I was born.

She then told me she doesn’t know why exactly we fell out. I laughed – literally. Funny that! So I told her the truth. The argument began by me confronting her about what she has been saying to my aunt and to my sister about me and my fiancé, which my mother furiously denied and called my aunt a liar.  She told me if I believed her over my own mother, I could get out of her house. I told her she then went on to tell me I was brainwashed and needed sectioning and all of the rest of it.  My aunt, understandably was gobsmacked.

Anyway, the very long story short is that we realised (well, she did) that my mother wanted to keep us apart so that aunt didn’t find out that the row was about the fact my mother had been caught out.

Apparently my mother never replied to my aunt’s text on Sunday. I’m genuinely very surprised at that because my mother ALWAYS has to have the last word. She told me she doesn’t think they will ever speak again now. I told her I think she might be right.  That’s two people in the last few months that have called my mother out on being a fuck up of a mother. Me and now my aunt. She will be steaming angry.

My aunt said that she does believe my mother is extremely upset that we aren’t speaking and that she will miss my wedding. I told her, well, if she would rather not speak to me again or come to my wedding than take a look in the mirror and admit her mistakes and apologise for them – then whose fault is that? She agreed.

My aunt also told me that a mutual friend of hers and my mother’s had been to see her since this and also said she should stop seeing me for my mother’s sake and that she had said to her she absolutely wouldn’t do that. This mutual friend apparently said to her, “She was a really terrible mother though, I know”.  She apparently said that repeatedly in front of my aunt, and her husband. Shame she doesn’t tell my mother that too.

I told my aunt that my mother was acting like a fucking dictator. Who does she think she is telling her who she can and can’t talk to? EUGH. Thank God she didn’t just comply with my mother. No wonder my mother hasn’t replied to her, she will have cut her off now as she is no longer compliant and enabling.

It’s a shame that not everyone stands up to my mother. My sister won’t see me now either and I know why.  She’s been promoted to golden child and is loving the attention she is getting. Little does she know she’s just been recruited as another rescuer. Someone to give my mother all the narcissistic fix she needs. To tell her how nothing is her fault and that me (and my aunt now) are horrible abusers who she is best off without.  It is only a matter of time before I get a message to tell me she wants nothing more to do with me “because of the way I am treating mum”.  I will link to this page when that happens.

I feel bad for my aunt. She will be feeling so shit right now. She won’t want to lose my mother’s friendship. She has been discarded now she is no use to my mother. It’s actually a GREAT thing but she won’t feel like it is right now, of course.  She’s put up with so much from my mother over the years, I did ask her why she is still in her life anyway. She then told me she would have to “return the lovely bracelet”…. what bracelet? Apparently a few weeks ago my mother gave my aunt an engraved bracelet which said “friends forever”….. clearly it should have said “friends forever.. as long as you do what I say”.

I brought my sister a present this morning. A necklace with an elephant on that symbolises love and a special gift box and gift bag which had stars on it which reminded me of our favourite bedding we had as kids at her dad’s house.  Now I’m not sure whether to send it to her or not, I mean… she clearly doesn’t want to be in my life now anyway. Will it be seen as emotional blackmail? Will it be sent back to me? Ignored? I don’t know what to do.

And then there’s the absolute fuck up with T.

After that wonderful phone call I went back to work and saw T had sent me a text. The text wasn’t for me. It was for Sonia. WHO THE FUCK IS SONIA? Now, accidents happen, mistakes happen – especially when using technology but the problem is, that the way T speaks to Sonia is NOT how she speaks to me.

Firstly “Dearest Sonia”….. then normal therapist shit and then… “Much Love”. OUCH OUCH OWWWW OWWW OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Two tiny and simple words that somehow sliced through my heart.

Well this triggered me instantly of course. Why does she like, sorry LOVE, Sonia and not me? Why is she so warm to her and not to me? Why doesn’t she say things like that to me? How old is she? Why does that even matter? I don’t know.

I know this is totally illogical and irrational and totally immature, but I always hoped it was ME that she liked best. Maybe loved… I always hoped it was ME she had a soft spot for and that I was the only client. For some reason I want to be the only young client – mother/daughter fantasy I guess?

Anyway it fucking hurt and I text her to tell her she had sent it to me by mistake and she replied so casually saying oh yes it did, sorry, see you tonight.. and I thought PFFTTT no you won’t.

And so I cancelled my session.

I have NEVER cancelled a session. Ever. Not once in 3 years, not even for genuine illness.

In fact, my session should start in exactly 5 minutes and I have absolutely no fucks spare to give.

On top of the shit with work, the stuff with my mother and aunty, my sister and everything else, this really was the final nail in the coffin. I just can’t take any more today.  I know that sounds very victim like and poor me and I hate that but… that’s the absolute truth. I feel like if I let myself, I would have some sort of breakdown. I’m not sure I would be able to pick myself up from it very quickly.

I know T sent the text by accident. I know that. (Please God if you comment, don’t say that, I know it I promise) but it has made me feel like she is fake and she doesn’t like or love me in the way I had tricked myself into believing she did. Certainly not like she loves Sonia.

Maybe my attachment system has been activated and I’ve gone into flight mode by not having my session, I can see that at some point in the future, days or weeks, I will be over this enough to talk to her about calmly, but today is not that day and today’s session shouldn’t have been about that and it would have had to be. Not going isn’t about punishing her, it’s about trying to protect ME.

I’ve had enough of fighting this week. I feel mentally exhausted.

On that note, it’s dead on my session time. I bet she thinks I will still be there. I bet she doesn’t believe I won’t go. I pray she doesn’t phone me because I just can’t speak to her. There is no more fight in me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Approval and Boundaries

I dreamt last night that my stepdad was chasing me through a house or a building of some kind and was going to physically beat me up if he caught me.  I remember being face to face with him with my back to a wire fence and him screaming at me that I always play the victim.  The next thing that happened was me consciously thinking to myself:

“Why do I care if I have her approval or her love? I can approve of and love myself.  I don’t need her to do that”. 

I remember thinking this clearly but can’t work out if I was asleep or coming to consciousness.  Either way, it has stayed with me.

I keep thinking about it because it seems so obvious and so simple.  Why does this feel like a revelation of some kind? a new idea, a new realisation? It surely can’t be because I’m pretty sure I have read nearly ever book published about healing from parental/maternal narcissism and surely that must be a theme throughout, right? Speaking of books, only yesterday I purchased “Children of the self-absorbed” by Nina W.Brown – from the amount of books, blogs, articles and so on that I read, I am clearly still hoping for something I haven’t already read to sink in at a newer, deeper level or something. The books pretty much say the same thing I suppose, but I read them (and sometimes re-read them) for validation and encouragement I guess?

Only last night I found myself on Google for hours reading about ‘Cutting out toxic parents’, ‘Going No Contact’ and even, ‘My daughter has cut me out her life’.  Yep, I was even reading the things my mother might be reading. (I’m not actually sure who I am trying to kid thinking my mother would be reading anything like that, but there we go)… it’s like I wanted to be prepared for the types of things she might say but all I read was a lot of poor you’s aimed at the mother’s whose awful children had rejected them – nothing, obviously, about self-reflection or anything like that.

Anyway the point is why do I need her approval? Why has this been such a huge thing for me? Perhaps something has shifted for me which is making it hard to understand but today I seem unable to feel the pain not getting her approval has always given me. That is odd isn’t it? Where has it gone? Perhaps because of all of the work I’ve done in and out of therapy I have strengthened my ‘self’ enough that I am starting to feel the benefit of having some approval towards my self – something I clearly didn’t used to experience at all… is that what is meant to happen?  Perhaps it is because I feel as though I have T’s approval, my fiance’s approval, his kids’ and his parents’ approval? Maybe its a mixture of all of those things.  Perhaps it is from the type of re-mothering T gives me.

It has been a month now that we have not spoken and (as I have already written) I came off of Facebook about 3 days ago and as cheesy as it sounds, I feel better for having done that already.

I haven’t had to see my mother’s stupid check-in’s, photos or statuses and my aunty’s party was last night so I haven’t had to see all the fake smiles of her and my stepdad.  Saying that, yesterday I text my aunty to tell her I couldn’t make it.  I told her that me and my mother were not speaking and that we hadn’t done for a month.  She had no idea which I admit annoyed me a bit because if my mother really cared that my aunty had told me the things my mother had been saying about me and my fiance, then surely she would have confronted her? At least spoken to her about it in some way? But no, obviously she hadn’t and she was attending her party as if everything was normal.  Can she not see that would annoy me? I guess it comes back to the same thing that she doesn’t think about how I would feel – she cannot empathise with someone else.

Deleting Facebook is the best thing for me right now. There is so much envy and anger inducing crap on there sometimes.  I feel kind of empowered at having removed that link from her.  Now she truly can’t see what I am doing in any way. Not herself, or via her friends or other family members.  I like that.  That feels much better.It feels almost like I’ve taken some power back.  I just hope it doesn’t encourage the direct contact.

I think I can feel a bit of anger in me as I think about this approval stuff. Why the hell do I need approval from someone like her? We are such different people. In fact, if she DID approve of me, then I would probably be doing something very wrong!! I don’t live my life like her. In fact, it is hard to believe we are related at all, yet alone mother and daughter.  I need to focus on the fact that I know I am a good person. I am kind and thoughtful and loving.  I try to show my fiance and stepchildren love. I try to show them that I care about them.  I am not perfect – I am flawed like we all are and yes, I have times where I am selfish, greedy or stroppy, but on the whole I know I am a decent person.

I can understand why the child in me has always craved approval from her mother – I can see that, I can understand that so I don’t want to make it sound like I am belittling that in any way and perhaps it is with hindsight from therapy that I am able to release the need for the approval? Either way, maybe this need for approval has lessened because we aren’t speaking or seeing each other. Perhaps that is what having no contact can do for me? Maybe if I found myself back in her house that need would come flooding back. Who knows.

In other news my sister replied to my messages Friday night when I was at my leaving party.  24 hours later. Her messages didn’t go down well. They effectively said that she doesn’t like the language I was using (as in the phrases/terminology – not swearing) and that we shouldn’t need ‘ground rules’ and that she didn’t think there was an issue at all between me, her or my mother and so she was confused where this had come from. As I was at my work party I just ignored them and last night I knew she would be at the party with my mother and co and so I didn’t reply yesterday either as I imagined them all discussing me and my messages.

If I am totally honest I kind of feel a bit like I am fighting a losing battle. I feel like I made the contact with her when clearly she wasn’t going to. I have heard her out, apologised for anything I did that upset her and then made some new suggestions for how we can have a healthier relationship going forwards.  All she has done is bring problem after problem and now is complaining at my language and basically saying she doesn’t agree or understand why we might need boundaries regarding my mother.  She claims she “has always done that anyway so I don’t understand why that issue has come up now“…. I mean that really is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.  Excuse me whilst I sound like a child but where is my apology? Where is the warmth or the gladness that I made contact and that she also would like to have a healthy relationship with ME too? Where is the meeting me halfway?

Eugh. I dunno, I feel really annoyed by her and having just spoken this through with my fiance, he is trying to encourage me to just text her in a few days or whenever and ask how her weekend was or send her a text as I usually would. I told him, she doesn’t work like that. She is still clearly being aggressive and standoff-ish and that I feel like I’ve reached my limit of being the one trying to do the work here.  Where is her effort? Why not just say ‘Hi, thanks for reaching out to me first. I really am glad you did. I appreciate your apology and I am also sorry for the hurtful things I said to you. I think the new suggestions are a good idea and I agree they will enable us to get along much better from now on’.  Done. Simple. Why drag out the drama needlessly?

I will also admit that her comment about my use of language/words has really pissed me off and the reason for that is that in my mind, that has been said between my mother and her. That feels like my mother’s words and it feels like another dig about my therapy because they are not used to me wanting to put in boundaries.  I didn’t use the word boundaries for that exact reason, but the effect has been the same.  I guess this makes me angry because my mother said I had changed and that therapy had made me worse and that I had been brainwashed and I feel like my sister agrees with her and me trying to put in some boundaries is making her question why I am doing that – basically the undertone being ‘this is therapy stuff – you don’t do this, this isn’t you – you have changed.. therapy is brainwashing you’.  Of course that is my fantasy and I could be totally wrong so maybe this is just my insecurity. For some reason I feel real strong irritation and anger about this point.

Sometimes I want to scream at them both “Yes I’ve fucking changed! That tends to happen after 3 years of therapy, reading hundreds of books, thousands of articles and blogs.  I have got healthier. Now I won’t accept all the shit I used to – now you have to treat me in a way that makes me happy otherwise I will not participate at all.  Yes I have changed and you say that as a bad thing but its the best thing I’ve ever done.  Yes I have changed and you don’t like it but that is YOUR problem – not mine.”

Oh wow, super aggressive me, not sure where that came from! I know that the ways I have changed are for the best. I know that the changes I am making are healthy and so my mother, stepdad or sister thinking otherwise really shouldn’t bother me, should it? But it really bloody does.  It’s that ugly duckling feeling again that often rears its head.    I have read today that it is quite common for people to react with anger if they are not used to you setting boundaries. I’ve also read that anyone that doesn’t respect your boundaries is the one with the problem.  But if she genuinely believes she has always done that, or even if she doesn’t believe that but is willing to change it, why not just agree so we can move on?

Why does everything have to be such a battle? Is it really as simple as people being threatened?