The Conversation

    Most adult children of abusive parents have "the situation" which divided their life into a "before" and "after" section. It's what made them realized that they cannot have a normal relationship with their parents. Perhaps it was the moment when they first learned about personality disorders, or their parents crossed a line so severely that it was unforgivable. Maybe they got out into the real world, which their parents always tried to isolate them from, and learned that all of the "quirks" that bothered them were actually forms of abuse. Or they got "corrupted" by a friend or partner from a "normal family", and realized that emotionally healthy people don't treat them poorly like their own family does. Whatever it is, most of us had a moment when the illusion of a happy, healthy family where our discomfort was the only "problem", was shattered. And there was no looking back - nothing could ever go back to how it was.

    My "situation" was a conversation that occurred in my late teens. I formed an online friendship with a woman who turned out to be a nutjob in her own right, but also came from an abusive family. Through talking to her, I realized that most of what I was uncomfortable with in my family wasn't just "quirky behavior" that I should forget about, like my parents always insisted. Her parents were extremely similar to mine, and we could relate to each other on the vast majority of the abusive experiences we both suffered at the hands of our parents. She showed me Issendai's series on estranged parents' forums, and I realized that my parents' behavior and beliefs were nearly 100% identical to the ones discussed on that blog. I finally knew the words to describe my feelings and experiences, and that I wasn't alone. I began reading various forums online for adult children of abusive parents, including r/raisedbynarcissists (which has gone downhill significantly since then - but this was all almost a decade ago).

    But I was hopeful - surely my mom, who loves me and cares about me very much, would be open to a discussion about all of this. At the time, I thought she was just a co-victim of my terrible, abusive dad. Perhaps an enabler at worst. So, I decided to confront her about it. I went into the kitchen as my dad watched TV in the living room, and I told her I wanted to talk to her about something. I told her everything, just about. All of the sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, my dad. All of the times where his alcoholism threatened my life or caused extreme dysfunction in the family. All of the times I felt unsafe. Every event written on this blog taking place before this conversation and many more - I got it all out.

    At first, she seemed so supportive. My mom apologized for not giving me a good childhood, and she cried with me. Yes! I've succeeded - I imagined that things would be so much better from now on. We'd really work on things, and we'd be happy. She promised me that everything would change and that she'd make it right.

    Unfortunately, my dad overheard the conversation and started stomping around angrily. His feelings were hurt. My mom asked him what was wrong, and he said "nothing" and stomped out of the back door to go smoke a cigarette. Looking back, this is when my mom realized she made a mistake - she was not supposed to take my side. From this moment, the conversation got uncomfortable and just weird.

    I tried to get my mom back on topic after he was out of the room - he always threw tempter tantrums about random things, so I didn't pay it any mind. I wanted to tell her more about the sexual abuse. Her response broke my heart - "okay, but did he rape you?", said in this terrible, snarky, dismissive tone. She repeated herself. There was no mistaking this for a benevolent attempt at making the details of the situation very clear - there was nothing but pure malice in her voice. I said "no" - she replied, "then it wasn't that bad". I insisted that it was sexual abuse either way - her response, "oh, so he's not good enough for you, but his money is?". "But I was an innocent little girl! I didn't choose to be born to a man like him!", I said. "Oh, you weren't that innocent", she smirked back at me.

    Well, that hurt. I went back up to my room and cried. I'm not sure I really knew what to make of this whole situation at this point. I was mostly confused, but I wanted to keep trying. Something really bothered me about it, though. I guess I couldn't yet accept what it meant - that my mom doesn't really care about me, never did, never will. Admittedly, it's a hard pill to swallow - plus, you have to remember that I was still in "my mom is an innocent victim in all of this, just like I am" mode. I tried again for a couple of days, through the discomfort with the hurtful things she said.

    This was during the time period where I drove her to and from work every day, sacrificing my ability to experience normal, age-appropriate things like relationships, friendships, jobs that I wanted, and educational opportunities. That same week, I drove her to work and I saw a billboard that said something that I consider triggering - I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was a word that can be related to one of my dad's many deranged sexual fetishes, which he openly exposed me to from infancy to early adulthood. I've always had a twitching problem which occurs when I have intrusive and disturbing thoughts, primarily those related to my childhood. I told her that my childhood was so painful that I can't even see that word without twitching due to the flashbacks it puts in my head. "I don't want to talk about this anymore", she said. She was done entertaining the things I was saying and I stopped bringing it up. I realized this was going nowhere.

    She very explicitly made a choice to prioritize her sad little marriage and her terrible husband over her own child. The worst thing is that she didn't realize what she did - I bet she doesn't remember this even happening. Not in the gaslighting "that never happened" way where they damn well know that it really happened, but denial of anything being wrong in our family comes so naturally to her that I doubt this event was special enough to be remembered in the long term. If she remembers it, she doesn't think it's a big deal. Nothing that anyone ever does to me is a big deal to her, no matter how bad it is.

    From that day, I became cold and distant. I started to looked down on her and I could never quite stop. I realized that she wasn't some precious little co-victim of my dad's abuse, but that she was every bit as rotten as he was. She allowed all of this to happen. She didn't care about any of it - not even the parts where I was sexually abused, something that would send any healthy mother into a homicidal rage against the person who did it. Even if he had penetrated me, she'd still find some way for it to "not really count". I remember thinking, "if he murdered me she'd probably find a way to make it my fault and absolve him!". And I was right, I really do think she'd find an excuse even for that.

    There were a few good times after that, but this is when I developed the "ick" feeling towards her. It made my skin crawl for her to even touch me. I could not hear "I love you" from her without wanting to vomit. She always wondered "what happened to our close relationship", which is why I doubt that she even remembers saying anything that she said to me then. There were many attempts at rekindling said "close relationship", and admittedly I tried to stomp down the "ick" feelings and go back to "normal" a few times, too. I couldn't. There was no way. This was the beginning of the end. Denial is not something that works for me, and I have no idea how it works for these people.

    The worst thing is, it was just a couple of months ago that I realized that this conversation was totally unnecessary because she already knew. I basically just told her a bunch of stuff that she was aware of because she was there and/or I told her about it right after it happened. My brain had blocked out the parts of many memories of being sexually abused where I ran to her for help, and she totally rejected me. At best, she'd make a half-hearted attempt at "getting him to stop", and promising me that "he won't do it again because she talked to him about it". One time, she even let him abuse me so she could go spend time with her boyfriend. As for the non-sexual abuse, she knew about all of it too, but didn't care about that either. But if I hadn't tried to confront her about all of this nearly a decade ago, maybe it would have taken me much longer to figure out that she is a co-abuser, not a co-victim.

Here is what I think she really told me "between the lines", during that conversation and the following days before she forbade the topic altogether:

"You are not getting in the way of my family - we're going to act like you never said any of this"

"Three year old girls have the ability to sexually tempt grown men - and it's the little girl's fault, not the grown man's fault"

"Sexual abuse is okay up until a certain point" (although, like I said, I doubt the existence of this point in her mind)

"If you provide the bare minimum as required by law for a child, it's okay to sexually abuse them"

"You don't get to complain about any degree of abuse if we occasionally pay for something of yours"

"It's uncomfortable for me to be confronted with the reality that things are not all well in our family - so shut up about it"

"Deep down inside, I have a conscience - but I choose to prioritize a sexually abusive, violent, good-for-nothing alcoholic over my own child anyway"

"That Didn't Happen" - Being locked in a car outside of a Burlington Coat Factory

     I'm going to start a series of shorter stories about my family, called "that didn't happen" - it's tongue in cheek, referring to how my parents would rewrite some or even all of an event after it happened. If you're reading this blog, you know how abusive parents are... they don't take accountability for their actions. If their conscience is eating them up, or they know they did something wrong, they don't just apologize for it and make amends like a normal person would. They tell you that you have an overactive imagination, they don't remember that happening, it happened differently than you're remembering it, or it didn't happen at all. It's one of the many forms that gaslighting can take.

    When we moved to the United States, we lived with my maternal grandma for a while. She moved around with us all over the Southeast until we settled on one major city, where we lived in a one bedroom together, until she moved away when I was in the 3rd grade. My grandma was a real monster of a mother, and even though my mom won't hear a single criticism of her, she was absolutely not fit to be around children. One example of her poor character is that she'd often leave my mom with strangers from a very young age, so she could go shopping and clubbing with her friends. My mom told me lots of stories about this happening, where she'd be crying the entire time for her mom to come back for her. When I said that my grandma isn't a very good mother for allowing this, my mom backtracked and went into "how dare you" mode. My mom insists that her mom was very loving and good despite this (and many other things), because her pride won't let her admit that she was failed by her parents from birth.

    Well, believe it or not, she didn't view me any differently. They say that some abusive parents "change" and treat their grandchildren better, but my grandma was not like this. I could always tell that having to watch me was a terrible chore for her. She hated even speaking to me, and she really lacked the proper judgment about what topics were appropriate to talk about with a child. I could see that it angered her if I needed anything, and I knew better than to ever ask her to play or spend time with me. If she ever watched me, I mostly sat there in silence, because I knew that I would be met with anger and yelling if I interrupted her as she watched her soap operas. She used to give me lots of food to shut me up, and my mom and grandma both don't understand how this is related to a weight problem I developed at a young age - which they loved to make fun of me for, of course. If I was eating, at least I wasn't trying to bother her.

    My grandma used to illegally clean a clothing store, and my mom would drive her to and from work. My grandma had her own form of learned helplessness, much like my parents, but hers specifically was that she would not learn how to drive. She had been this way from her early 20's - just entirely rejected the idea. At this point, my mom was comfortable driving in the United States even though she was here illegally and didn't have a driver's license. My grandma would insist that they go to several clothing stores after work every day - she had more outfits than there are days in the year, I swear I'm not exaggerating. After she moved back to our country, we still had boxes and boxes of her clothes. Clothes that she never even got around to wearing, because there were just so many of them. My mom said that she'd stand in the stores flipping through the discount and clearance racks like pages in a book.

    Well, they didn't have anyone to watch me if it was with the both of them, and obviously as a 6 or 7 year old, the last thing I wanted to do was look at blouses at multiple clothing stores each day. As any kid would, I asked if we can go home, and if we really have to go to another store after this. My grandma got very angry with me, and her solution to the problem was to buy me a large pizza and lock me in the car outside of the store with the window cracked. My mom 100% went along with this idea, to placate her own mom.

    Except, it didn't work. Of course it didn't work. I immediately panicked. The pizza did not comfort me the way she expected it to - how could it? I was literally locked in a car in a parking lot outside of a clothing store. I started screaming, crying, and beating on the windows after they walked into the store. I actually think this is one of the first ever panic attacks I remember having.

    Eventually, a nice woman came to my rescue. I still remember exactly how she looked, an older and very short black lady with short hair and a pink baseball cap. I was so relieved. She was horrified to see a small child locked in a car. "What's happening? Where is your mom?" - I told her that my mom left me in the car so she could go clothes shopping. She was disgusted and asked for my mom's phone number, so she could call her. I gave it to her, and my mom didn't answer the phone. Then she had the idea of going into the store and making them announce on the intercom that there is a screaming child in a car, and that their parents need to come out. She asked for my mom's name and went inside.

    Out come my mom and my grandma, absolutely fuming at me. I know it was at me, because that's what they told me. They thought I was so irresponsible and impatient, and I could have gotten them in serious trouble! They even left me with a pizza, I was fine, what was I thinking by doing what I did? It was only for a few minutes! My grandma gave me her typical silent treatment, which my mom also did, but for a shorter duration than my grandma. My grandma loved the silent treatment, and it worked pretty well on my mom (but generally not on me) - the intention was that I'd beg for her forgiveness to get her to talk to me again. Neither of them saw anything wrong with what they did, and explicitly stated that I was to blame for this situation. They could have been arrested! I felt awful, because I was still too little to understand that I was wronged.

    Well, fast forward to my late teens or early 20's, when this event came up in a conversation with my mom. I believe that I'd already been reading blogs and material online about abusive and dysfunctional families, and I remembered being locked in a car outside of a clothing store... and I realized it was screwed up. Really, really screwed up. I asked my mom about it, and she rewrote much of the story. The biggest slap in the face was her trying to tell me that she was angry at my grandma, not me. That my grandma "forced" her to lock me in a car with a pizza and go clothes shopping, that she had no choice.

    It was one of the earlier things my mom did when I was a young adult that made me realize we absolutely cannot have a normal relationship. I explicitly remember her being angry with me, blaming me for the situation, and going along with my grandma's idea of leaving me in the car. I remember the exact wording, tone, and facial expressions that very clearly expressed "this is your fault". What the hell was she talking about now? Years later, I figured out it was an attempt at gaslighting. Back then, I just thought she was lying to make herself look better, because she knew I was old enough to know that she wronged me, and she had hoped I forgot the situation by now... but I didn't.

    Even the lies themselves were quite telling. "Forced to"... my mom was in her early 30's at this point. No one forced her to do anything, she could have said "no". She needed to say no, her child's safety and well-being was at stake. That was her responsibility and her duty to me, and she failed at it. The fact that I explicitly remember her being angry with me for being scared means that she is just like my grandma - she viewed me as a burden and just wished I'd shut up already and let her do what she wants. My mom is only a little bit better at hiding it than my grandma is.

    I have a daughter now and the idea of ever putting her in an unsafe situation like this literally makes my stomach turn. I am not exaggerating - I would rather die. I would not be able to live with myself if my spinelessness was the cause for her screaming and crying in a car, beating on a window, terrified about being left in a strange place all alone. This is probably one of the most glaringly obvious examples of my mom just not giving a damn about me, my safety, or my dignity. And the pizza was just the icing on the cake - like I'm a cat that can be left alone with a bowl of food and be just fine.

Divorce Shaming

    I've touched briefly upon my "divorce" on this blog. Well, it was more of an annulment, but we don't need to go into those details. When I was a teenager, my mom pressured me to get married. She had a few reasons for this: she wanted her precious American papers, she wanted her daughter to be married before all of her friends' and our relatives' daughters who were roughly my age, and she wanted to post pretty pictures of a wedding on Facebook to make everyone jealous (this was explicitly stated enough times in other situations that I can very safely assume it was a part of the intention here). To no one's surprise, a much older man with mental health issues and a dodgy employment and education history who I met off of the internet turned out to be abusive. I could talk about it more, but it is one of the few things I genuinely need to leave in the past for my own mental well-being. From start to finish, I had a nasty feeling and lots of apprehension about the whole thing.

    And you'd think that if someone saw their adult child leave an abuser, they'd be supportive and even happy about this - but not my mom. I frequently saw her go back and forth between some sort of unconscious support and full-blown shaming. I think that deep down inside, there was a part of her that was at least somewhat in touch with what a healthy reaction to her adult child leaving an abuser would be - but she had to stomp it down, for her own ego's sake, and instead generally expressed disapproval of my choice. It hurt and confused me. I didn't understand why she wanted me to continue being miserable, overworked, neglected, and abused, in a situation that I didn't really want to be in in the first place. My dad had a similar set of opinions - "Have you tried reaching out to him? It's the least you could do after what you did to that poor boy". It stung that neither of them cared what was done to me, but they were the ones who helped it all happen, and it wasn't the first (or last) time they joyfully took the side of someone who hurt me.

    Years later, I married - this is what I consider my real first marriage, because I was an adult making a decision of my own free will, free from anyone else's influence, and he really is my first love. We currently have a happy life together, a house, and a child. I initially had to hide this marriage from my parents, partly because I told him everything that my parents did to me. He never wanted to meet people as rotten as them, and I knew they'd ask. When my mom finally found out about him, she said "What are you going to do when you get tired of this one? Throw him away just like you did the last one?" - completely devoid of any empathy for the fact that the first one was only happened due to literal coercion and that the reason I left was actual, full-blown abuse. She had convinced herself that I just "got tired" of him, for no good reason - it was DARVO. Suddenly, my abuser was the victim, and I was some evil harpy who was "throwing away" perfectly good men.

    My husband's grandma lived with us for a couple of months after we bought our house. She had been divorced twice and struggled financially, which my mom had some strong opinions on. "That's why you shouldn't get divorced, so you don't end up like her!". My mom said this as if she was offering wisdom that no one had ever thought of before. She had no questions about why my husband's grandma was divorced twice, it hadn't occurred to her at all that perhaps the men were abusive or just weren't fit for marriage, but the shaming came so effortlessly. There's a subtle implication here: "Marriage isn't for happiness or lifelong partnership, it's for financial stability - you're stupid if you value happiness or lifelong partnership over financial stability". Ironically, I know that at least one of the divorces occurred due to habitual financial irresponsibility on the man's part.

    I could go in depth about all of the other random, off-hand comments that my parents have made where they shamed divorcees - particularly women. They very much operated under the assumption that a divorce is primarily a woman's fault, she always could have tried harder or overlooked a few things she didn't like. More often than not, men were the "victims" of divorce, even in situations where the man's behavior was the reason for the divorce. Women had to carry their cross and much of their value was tied to "keeping a man" and endlessly sacrificing herself for her husband, even if he was an all-around terrible and useless person. The husband and wife were even meant to stick together through affairs, which my parents viewed as entirely normal.

    For a long time, my parents blamed this on their culture - supposedly, divorce is socially unacceptable in rural Slavic villages. To a small degree, this is true. However, most people from those cultures simply view marriage as a very serious and permanent bond and divorce as a tragedy, while also being able to exercise basic sympathy and empathy for the victims of things like adultery, abuse, and crippling levels of incompatibility. I found nothing but support and understanding in my church full of Slavic people after I had to leave and annul an abusive situation. But in my parents' eyes, I was being a rebellious Americanized twerp for thinking that divorce is often the best possible outcome for certain marriages. This is just another form of projection - it's much easier to blame my supposed rejection of my cultural roots for my developing attitudes about marriage and divorce that they find uncomfortable.

    My suspicion is that it's the real self vs. the false self, especially with my mom. I know she is deeply miserable in her marriage - even though she doesn't openly say this, it's glaringly obvious from how she speaks and behaves. I watched a video by Dr. Ramani last night, where she made the point that a lot of why narcissists behave so poorly is because they carry around a lot of shame, and instead of coping with it in a healthy way, they lash out and become increasingly miserable. There were a few occasions where my mom expressed support towards women who got divorced, usually when things were particularly rough between her and my dad, and she was able to briefly put aside her intense jealousy and malice towards others - that was her real self, I think. The one that can admit that she's miserable, and that she wishes she could be like the women who leave men like my dad.

    I sensed that the shaming and blaming that my mom put me through after I left my abuser was primarily rooted in jealousy, as much as I hate to say it - "how dare you do something that I was always too cowardly to do". I could tell that she was angered by the fact that my eyes were opened to the possibility of women leaving bad men, and I was not as stuck as they always told me I was. I was no longer going to sit there and accept excuses for her refusal to leave an even worse man, nor was I going to let her repeatedly slander divorcees. When I met my husband, her resentment grew - not only did I leave a terrible man, but I was now able to pursue a truly healthy and loving relationship, something she knows that she will never experience as long as she keeps up the act of "divorce is always bad and you need to stick out a miserable marriage no matter what".

    And what does my mom gain from all of this? I know what my dad gains - a woman who expects very little from him, who thinks he put the stars in the sky, and who is too emotionally crippled, prideful, and scared to leave him. Not scared of anything legitimate, like retaliation - but scared of the fact that "it'll look bad", and scared of the idea of having to rely on herself instead of his paycheck. His paycheck was always the most important thing, far more important than her own child's safety and dignity. His ability to provide was always the primary reason why criticizing him in any way was absolutely forbidden, it was the ultimate excuse for any poor, abusive, and outright dangerous behavior. So, I suppose she thinks that him making just above minimum wage is worth her dignity and a lifelong, miserable, unfulfilling marriage. 

    I honestly don't get it, and I'm just theorizing at this point. I also think that she's dug herself into such a deep hole by being married to him for nearly 30 years, that she'll say anything to justify to herself that she should stay, so she doesn't feel like she's wasted three decades on a bad man and made a terrible mistake. She has said in the past, "what would become of him if I left?" - he's quite good at using his weaponized incompetence and boohooing about his childhood to manipulate others into feeling bad for him. I suppose this is related to the time after I finally broke free from my own abuser, and my mom said that I need to fly up every month to take care of that disgusting groomer, who manipulated me into a marriage, and made my life a living hell for several years - "if you don't, he'll die, and it'll be all your fault! You know he can't take care of himself!". She definitely has some very dysfunctional ideas about what marriage is supposed to be like, and a serious problem with boundaries.

    But no matter how much she looks down on the people, specifically women, who leave bad marriages, they did the right thing and she knows it. I know it tears her up inside that I got an annulment, that I recognized the abuse for what it was, that I don't feel guilty for what I did, and that I'm happily married to a good man now. She knows that my experiences make it impossible for her to try to tell me "I can't, what would happen if I did, it's not possible, it's wrong". After this era in my life, conversations about my dad and their marriage became increasingly awkward - she ran out of coping mechanisms and manipulative tactics to convince me that I was a bad person with bad ideas, and it frequently set off her narcissistic rage. She knew I looked down on her for staying with my dad - how could I not? Eventually, her only excuse was the most basic one: everything that she doesn't like, doesn't understand, and doesn't want to do is "for stupid people", divorce included. The grapes are sour anyway, right?