So I have read a lot of this thread and just wanted to be very rude and hijack it ( 😛 ) with my own experience. Sorry - I didn't want to start a new thread in case you didn't read it Jacques. I thought we might have a tiny bit in common. I apologise if we don't!
I grew up in a country town in Sth East Gippsland. It was just me and my mother. My mother was an alcoholic in my early years, however as I got older she graduated to b1nge drinking instead of drinking all day every day, however she still has something deeply wrong with her - I have no idea what it is, she refuses to seek help, to admit anything is wrong with her. Whatever it is, it doesn't allow her to feel distressing emotions like shame, guilt, fear, sadness etc. She always had to transfer the feelings to me in an effort not to feel them. For some reason, as soon as she transferred the bad feelings to me she instantly felt relief.
Unfortunately I walked around with all of her bad feelings on my shoulders weighing me down. As a result I was severely bullied all through out primary school and high school. Being victimised at home makes you a perfect target for the bullies of the outside world, as it turns out 😛 Other kids, molesters, abusers of all kinds can see it in you - they seek it out because I suppose they don't want to feel their bad feelings either and see in you a perfect vessel to put them into. Anyways.
When I was young and she was an alcoholic she felt like she had fucked up her life - and of course she didn't like that feeling, so she blamed me instead. It was my fault for not being born a boy, that's why dad left - my fault for being ugly, for being slow, for being stupid. I was the bane of her existence, the reason her life lacked meaning - the reason she never went to school and studied nursing, the reason she was stuck where she was - the reason she didn't have friends or interests. Taking care of me was so incredibly draining - doing even the most basic of things took up all her time and energy. She had none left over to touch me, to hug me, to kiss me - she deeply resented me and didn't want to 'love' me. Just cooking for me was agonising for her - she had to keep me alive but didn't really take any pleasure or pride in it like other mothers. She sent me to school with unbrushed hair, clothes from the op shop that had swear words on them, trousers with holes in them. Sometimes we didn't eat properly and I would go to school starving. Sometimes she beat me. I would go to school with bruises and have to say that I had 'walked into a door' or 'fallen over'. She would train me what to say.
She kept me very close, though, that is what is so confusing to me - she made me sleep with her until I was ten years old! I only figured out how abnormal this was after sleeping overnight at other people's houses, when I was finally allowed to. She used to keep the TV on all night and the electric blanket on really high, which I hated - I used to sweat and toss and turn with the excessive heat, the noise and bright lights. One day I wet the bed and she went ballistic - but finally bought me a bed of my own soon afterwards! Yay! I was so happy. I never wet the bed again 🙂
Finally having a bed of my own meant that I could go to bed when I wanted - in a quiet dark room, yeah! I could get some sleep and wake up rested for a change. But as I found myself drifting off to sleep she would wake me up, drunk, and drag me out of bed. She would sit me down at the kitchen table and lists the ways I had ruined her life. Sometimes she would get so worked up she would beat me.
Part of me wanted to keep the image of her sacred - the caregiver, pristine - and so I would agree - I was bad, I had ruined her life, why wasn't I better? Why wasn't I more lovable? Of course she couldn't kiss me and hug me and give me nice words - I was so awful.
But another part of me knew. That other part of me knew she was selfish. Knew she was weak. Knew she was a terrible, horrible person for doing this to me.
You could say this created two people - the first one the false self, the one who existed in her reality - the one who took blame and shame and guilt when there was no need to, in order to accomodate bullies and feel as though she deserved to be loved.
But then there was the real self buried layers underneath - the one that knew the world could be a terrible place, that it contained bullies who would unfairly try to make me feel what they didn't want to feel. The false self made this self feel bad for even existing! How dare I step out and say, hey, I deserved to have my mother's love, no matter what! What she did was wrong! I am not unlovable at all! The false self wanted me to stay meek. To stay weak. Because that meant the world really was good. And I did control things - I could control who hurt me and who didn't, by acting like a martyr - if I prostrated myself enough, people would 'love' me. If I allowed myself to be my real self, though - well, people wouldn't like it at all! They wouldn't 'love' me - they would reject me!
Anyways during highschool I found friends I could get along with - people in the same boat as me - with unfair pressures put upon them by their mother figure - we never really said it that way because we didn't know - I certainly didn't know at that point. We smoked dope and that really messed with me - it brought all of my fears to the foreground. I suppose I had a predisposition for paranoia and delusions - making up my own reality in order to avoid my fears, I suppose. Denying the truth to keep the mother figure and the world at large intact, pure, pristine. Forcing myself to be at fault to keep this image up.
My friends eventually left - to go to uni, to go off and get married. I was institutionalised twice. I lost touch with them - I was resentful that they left and I hadn't. I wanted to, desperately - but felt I couldn't exist on my own. Don't know why - although I think my mother kept reinforcing that belief in me. "How will you eat? You don't cook now. You don't clean, you don't work. You're too shy to go and get a job."
I was very shy. I had no confidence. I was my false self - people walked all over me. People would drive past my house and yell things out. If I walked to town, people would slow their cars down and wind the windows down and yell things at me. People in the supermarket of my small town would comment on me as though I was some kind of zoo animal that they had the right to judge - "She has no personality what so ever. What the hell is wrong with her?" Or, "What a dull girl." Things to that effect which of course just made me feel worse. When you already feel bad the world just has this way of making it worse doesn't it!
When dealing with psychiatrists and psychologists and psych nurses and the like, my mother was always there, on the periphery, with helpful comments such as, "Well, she always was quiet," or "She always did throw tantrums," or "She always this, she always that." Now that I look back it makes perfect sense! Of course she wanted me to be ill! Because that would mean she hadn't been the world's worst mother! She would be absolved of all blame! It's not my awful, loveless, terrible mothering, no! My child is the problem, not me! So she kept me sick!
She encouraged it. She reinforced it. But like I said, part of me always knew, the real self, buried deep; it would whisper to me - she's wrong. There's nothing wrong with you. She's wrong.
At 25 I couldn't take it anymore - we started to fight A LOT. I was terrified, I can tell you - but I did it - even though I had never had enough confidence to go and get a job, and even though I was terrified of people, I saved up enough money to move out.
I had begun to speak to people online in forums (like this one) and on IRC - and I forged some friendships with people - I started to meet them on a monthly basis, talk on the phone, get to know them - and finally to ask them for help.
They never made me feel bad, or worthless, or ashamed; they allowed me to be my real self. They never put their feelings on to me unfairly. And they were supportive - they said I would have a place to stay if I needed it, for as long as I needed it. They were kind. They were there for me.
At 25 I saved enough money and I moved the fuck out of there. For me. Selfishly! I hated that damn town, I hated the stupid rumours, I hated people treating me like shit for no reason other than that they thought they could and I loved the big, anonymous city! I never had to feel small again - there were so many people in Melbourne, so many different kinds of people - poor people, old people, young people, disabled people, smart people, kind people - I could just blend in. Walk around, go where I wanted to.
Eventually I got a job delivering pizza - hey, I'm not gonna lie it was hard - I still had my online friends but no confidence - it took me ten years to get confidence! But I finally have some! Anyways I found it hard to make friends, sure - and the pay from delivering pizza was below minimum wage as I was a contractor, but I felt hopeful. I had panic attacks - every night - and I cried sometimes at work. Some people were kind, others were awful. That's the world, though. At least I had a chance. People noticed me - some noticed how awkward and stupid I seemed - clumsy, tripping up, stammering - others thought it was actually kind of sweet and took me under their wing. It was nice.
Anyways Jacques - I'm 34 now. I suppose I could still be in that awful, horrible town. But still at 34 I could move to the city and find a place to stay in a sharehouse, get a job as a pizza delivery woman. I could do it at 44, at 54.
