You's and We's

We've got teenage girls going sideways all over the place here in the Casa de Vanci.  Sometimes the ride is so fast and steep that I feel like I should be popping dramamine.  Mostly it's what I would consider 'normal' teenage drama.  Some of it's long delayed reaction to abuse stuff.  Some of it I can't even quantify yet.

We're dealing.  We're coping.  We're working through it and we're talking, talking, talking (so much that I find myself fantasizing about afternoons spent in quiet libraries and silent museums.)  I know that the talking is what's keeping our various heads above water, and that keeping communication channels open is the best thing in the whole wide world for helping these young ladies to find their paths out of the different issues they're mired in, but lordy is it tiring.

Tonight I had an in depth conversation with one of the DD's, and we made a lot of progress.  Many words were used.  Many tissues were used.  Many issues were brought to light.  Good, we're developing a plan.  This is good.

In reflecting on the conversation after the fact, I had one of those weird connections to my own youth in the form of opposites regarding the language that I use with my children as opposed to the language that was used with me by the Abusers when I was a child (and adolescent.)

I say:
"We're going to figure this out."
"We're going to find a way to make this work."
"We're going to keep thinking about this and talking about this until we can come up with a plan."
"We're going to find a way to help."
"We're going to be okay."
"We're going to reestablish the trust that was lost."
"We're going to keep trying."
"We'll always be here for you."
"We'll always love you for exactly who you are."

They said:
"You're not doing it right."
"You're making bad choices."
"You're being selfish."
"You're not carrying your weight."
"You've messed this up for all of us."
"You're hurting us by being _______ (insert Vanci's current state of being here.)"
"Look at what you're putting us through."
"You're being vindictive."
"You've always been difficult."

It's interesting to me that the Abusers of my NFOO spend so much time and energy making sure that everyone in their lives knows that Family Is Important To Them.  They should wear sandwich boards for all the ruckus they make about it.  "We're a Happy Family!" they'd declare, or "Look at How Perfect We Are!" Of course, it's all sham, a con game, a ruse, a false front.  But it's very important to them that people who aren't in their family know how very family-centric they are.

It was particularly important when ENF was still slamming the holy book into those pulpits on Sunday, while NM pounded out all the hymns about forgiveness on the piano.  The sham was at Von Trapp Family levels at that point in time.  We could have had a freeking production team.

What a lot of wasted energy.

But when I was young and hurting (who doesn't?  Hormones suck.  School often sucks.  Other kids and teenagers are MEAN!  A lot of teachers (no offense intended, mulderfan,) are deeply unhappy people looking to exert control over those 'lesser' than them in order to feel better about their own shortcomings, and that truly sucks for those under their pretense of power, throw a lifetime of abuse in there and you've got one hurtin' unit of a teenager!) when I was fragile and vulnerable and self conscious, well, there was never any of that energy put into helping me to feel like I was a part of a family.  They never told me that we'd work through it.
They told me that they were sure I'd figure out a way.
Or, they'd say you've made your own bed, missy.
Maybe you should hit your knees.
I don't understand why you make things so difficult for yourself.

They never spoke to me in the inclusive, we're all in this together, we're all pulling for you, we're going to work it out and we love you, love you, love you language that is my natural way of conversing with my daughters.  I know why they didn't speak to me this way - because none of that support existed, yet another abuse they perpetrated.  When the goal is to get as much out of you as they can and to make themselves feel/look/sound/act/be perceived as "good," regardless of what it does to you, well, I was never more than a supporting role, a day player, maybe the chick who pulls the curtain open or moves the sets around between acts.  I wasn't invited into the Union.

I'm struck, though, that this is one more area where they didn't and never will get a piece of me.  I grew up with the Family Finger of Blame pointed permanently at my forehead.  My daughters are growing up with the constant input that they're part of, included in, supported by and accepted as wonderful by this little family unit around them. That they'll always have a home in our hearts and our heads and our home.  That they are never, ever, ever alone and that we will always be just that: We.

When I do speak to them in direct address; You, it sounds like this:
"You are so special/smart/kind/beautiful."
"You are so loved."
"You are so funny."
"You can always come to me."
"You are wonderful, exactly the way that you are."

I'm so glad that I can see this for what it is; one more piece of the legacy of abuse that I was handed that I've chosen not to pass on.

Love,
Vanci

Living Well

I've been out of the blogland loop for a while, and I miss it.  I miss all of you.  I miss posting because I miss the craft of it - this has been my primary writing vehicle during the last year, and I certainly miss the act of expression.  Mostly, though, I miss your stories and following you each on your arcs through them.

I do have a good reason, though, one that I'm sure you can understand.  Life's just been too good, folks, too full of such incredible adventures and heart-warming moments lately for me to have any time to stop by or to knock on your doors.

Have you ever watched a disaster movie or read a post-apocalyptic novel?  They all have some elements in common: the Event, (the disaster, the near end of the world as we know it, the catalyst,) closely followed by some form of Monumental Struggle for the survivors, (of varying length and quality, no doubt, but this period of scraping for continued existence is crucial, otherwise these stories would be short, gruesome and very unpopular,) and then there's a Rebuilding Period, (when societies of some sort are reformed, rules are re-established and we are made to understand who the good guys an bad guys will be,) followed by the Rebirth of the continuation of human existence, (where we learn that the good guys will find a way to build it better, stronger, even if a few of them have to die to do it,) and then there is the Great Peace.  The End.  Until the next time.

That last part, the final scene of episode I, that's where I've been lately, and let me just say that it's been fine.   In the movies or the books, the visual would involve a softly setting sun, a flower pushing up through the ashes and opening its petals, waves lapping at the beach, new loves clasping hands and holding precious children.

In my life in the past few months, it's involved relationships, relationships, relationships and all of the attendant reward of joy, love, excitement.  We've had a family vacation, several college visits, financial gain, accolades, good grades, happy outings, happy stay-inings, Spring weather, plans for a new garden and I even had a lovely birthday surrounded by people who I love and who love me and with no expectations of anything else being required.  It's been normal and sweet and kind and fun.

Six years after my NFOO Event, and after having gone through unthinkable pain to crawl back out of the crater, having broken the chains that  bound me, after slogging through scorched earth for miles upon miles, having weathered epic storms and fought raging battles, I've reached the shore of my Great Peace.  It is full of the kind of relationships that my ties to the NFOO kept me from having.  It's heaven.

I recently had an interesting conversation with my counselor, who's been with the FOC in various incarnations through all of this and was one of the primary voices of reason in the beginning of the struggle to reclaim my shattered internal landscape.  We only see him once a month now, and in fact he's actually seeing my youngest DD only as she likes to know that he's available to her if she needs to talk, though she's rapidly losing interest as her life improves with both distance from the Crazymakers and the course of her maturity.  So I guess he's sort of on retainer more than anything else.

I always talk to him alone for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of her session, just to keep him current on the facts of our lives.  Lately there hasn't been anything worrying to say, but I had explained to him an issue that DD was having and what she and I had talked about so that he would know some of the backstory if she chose to bring it up.  We'd basically already developed a resolution together and she was feeling pretty good about it at that point.

He said, "Vanci, a lot of people who have grown up in abusive homes grow up and have children and they try very hard to do better for their children, to treat their children better than they were treated and that's a good thing, that's progress.  You have done that and you've taken it further.  You've learned how to treat your children with respect and how to have actual relationships with them as the actual human beings that they are and that is what has stopped the cycle of abuse for all of you."

This was a key moment for me.
It strikes me that this is a key understanding to not only stopping continued abuse, but to making sure that abuse never starts in the first place.  Respect for children as human beings seems like such a simple concept, but every Narc and Abuser chooses to disregard this basic human right.  But now I don't, and my children don't either.

That cycle being shut down, shuttered, lit on fire, broken, buried, melted and GONE, that's been the point.  And that's what I've taken with me.
The NFOO worked forever to beat me, break me, hurt me, and they were exquisitely successful in doing just that for a long time - to the point that I almost, almost sacrificed even my children to their altar of insanity.

But I didn't.  And I came back, and I repaired all the damage I could find, not with some half-ass patch up job either.  Over and over again I've gone back to the source of the pain in order to suck out all of the poison, even when it's meant that I had to cut away some of the living flesh in order to do so.

And the reward?  For me, it's been that I've become able to truly love truly loving people.
The gravy on top?  I've almost finished raising two daughters - born into the Crazymaker Clan - who are so self-assured, so smart, so present and so loved that it would be unthinkable to them to allow the fucktards of the NFOO or their non-family counterparts to treat them like I was treated for years.

Oldest DD said to me a couple of weeks ago when we happened to see one of the NFOO members from a distance and I asked, "Are you okay?" - "Oh hell yeah, Mom, why wouldn't I be?  I don't need psycho people like that or their drama in my life.  They're not my responsibility."

Living well, it seems, is truly the best revenge.

Love,
Vanci

The Only Way Out is Through the Center

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." On Pain - Kahlil Gibran

It's been just over six years since what I think of as Vanci's Last Stand.  You can read about that here, if you'd like.  I've been thinking that I should do a post to commemorate the passage of another year of NC, but the reality is that the only tangible difference in my feelings about the NFOO now as compared to a year ago is that I have a far greater level of indifference to their existence than I've ever had before.  In regard to my real (and quite wonderful) every day life, I've written about it all year long, and can only say that my overall feeling about the last year is that I am one lucky and grateful lady.

Much of my peace is attributable to the fact that I've got one more year of distance from the Crazymaker Clan under my belt, and that is a good thing, no, it's a great thing.  Maybe even in the All Time Top Five List of Best Things.  There's really not much to say beyond that.

But I've been thinking back to those crazy and painful times of six years ago, and I've been trying to ask and answer of myself some of the questions that I hear newly distanced, LC'd and NC'd peeps asking about how to make it through those rough and tumble, earth shaking, business end of the barrel times.  I've been trying to do what I do best, which is basically to boil a complex issue down into a simplified reduction, examine the facts that hold true and then develop a formula.  It's my process, and one that's served me well, both when I lived every day in survival mode and when I was starting to heal and now that I'm...well, I think the only way to describe where I am now is to say that I am content.

I spend very little time these days thinking about the members of the Clan, if I spend any at all.  I carry my scars and they are certainly reminders of all the negative feelings and horrible memories and terrors that I've survived, sure.  But they are also reminders of the fact that I broke those chains and won't be passing the bad juju down the line.  I live every day in the midst of so many reminders of the good, calm, loving, helpful, graceful, classy, joyful relationships and people and life that I have now, and if I charted a graph that showed my happiness in relation to the length of time I have NC, well, I'm sure that the trend would look like a dot-com stock's value in the early nineties.  Up, up and away.

I remember, though, what it felt like in Early No Contact.  It felt so awful, so wrong to be separated from my 'family.'  I was so tortured, so guilty for creating that heretofore unknown silence, for breaking something that I knew was wrong but that I'd been taught my whole life to accept as right.  I would have done almost anything to make things better, different, even the way that they used to be.  If you've read this blog at all, you'll know that every single person in my family of origin was abusive toward me in some degree.  The things that I've written about here - which are the tip of the iceberg, dearies, just a smidge of the reality of the abuse that I was dealt by the fuckers - are so horrific that they could be the plot-lines of a serial killer-hunting drama on television.  They're the types of things that people see or read about and think, "Surely this can't really happen in the real world."  Horror, pure and simple.

But in Early NC, I was still loathe to see it for what it was, to see them for the monsters that they really are.  I still held out hope that I could somehow, some way, if I was good enough or smart enough or worked hard enough or expressed myself more clearly or drew different boundaries or drank less or changed the way that I reacted or asked different questions, that I could find a way to repair my relationship with the Clan.  I didn't want to even contemplate NC forever in the early days; it would have been too much for my fragile world to take.  I felt like I would just shatter like a woman made of glass.  Thin glass.  Every.  Single.  Day.

I think of that now and I'd like to deny it.  I'd like to say that woke up one day and I was strong, that I was instantly okay, that I always knew what to do or how to act or react, but the truth is that it was a process of "the breaking of the shell of my understanding."  There's truth in the idea that a thing, once known, cannot be unknown.  As soon as I allowed myself to SEE the truth behind the false perceptions of the NFOO, I couldn't UNSEE that truth.  I didn't really want to accept it, but I couldn't unlearn it, I couldn't unknow and I couldn't avoid finding a way to deal with it.  Living every day with the pain of this process of knowing wasn't an option, so I had to find a way to move forward.

So I had to go through it.

Some days I put my head down and I charged through it angry.  I think of bulls in a run when I think of those days: incited to a near murderous anger and then unleashed in a narrow corridor to chase down a crowd of tormentors.  Some days I was like that, and those were the good days.

Most days I was lost, sad, unfocused and seriously fucking depressed.  In retrospect, it's all fine and good to say that I don't miss them in my life, and it's true beyond true that these days it's a ludicrous concept to me to even think about missing them.  I miss them these days about as much as I'd miss a hot poker to the eye.  But then, Early NC, I missed them like crazy. They had been my constants, you see?  No matter how fucked up they were, no matter how abusive they were, no matter how much of my life, my family of choice, my very soul I'd had to sacrifice to the altar of the Crazymaker Clan, they had been MY CLAN.  And then they weren't anymore, and that was a loss.

Loss is loss, and all loss leaves a void.  It hurt to cut off contact with them, it hurt like hell.

But, there's a reason that we recovering alkies talk about working a program and staying sober One Day at a Time and it's this: we understand that the only way to get the time to stack up is to do one of them at a time, moment to moment.  And that's what got me through the loss; doing just one more day upon one more day.

Eventually, I promise, the days got easier to do.  And that's when I decided to look into it further, to go beyond just accepting it and to start to try to figure out what the hell it really was, what it had really been in the first place and how it had changed.

Once I started to dig into core issues, I began to see a clearer picture of what, exactly, it was that I had lost.  The space and time that I created by just staying away and putting one day on top of another wasn't my plan, no, but it was instrumental in getting me clear enough from the leashes and muzzles of the NFOO to help me to see them (and to see me,) in the cold, clear light of reality.

That's when it started to get better.  That's when the FOG began to lift for me.  That's when I began to allow my defenses - so carefully constructed to block out a lifetime of abuse - to work for me instead of against me.  That's when I began to look at myself and really see who I was, to understand that I was broken because they'd broken me, but also that I was not beyond repair.

And that's when I began to understand that the loss that I felt, the grief that I was living with every day, was about my mourning the loss of something that never really existed in the first place.  And that's when I started to get better.

I've been NC long enough now to have experienced several distinct validations of the correctness of my choices to get away from the NFOO and to stay away.  I broke the shell of my understanding long enough ago that the pain that I felt initially and residually is largely non-existent now.  Bleeding wounds became scabs and then turned into scars, which serve to remind me that I survived and that I don't want to go back, so I won't.

I had to break that shell and go through the pain of it in order to form a new understanding, one that is without manipulation or lies.

So I guess that I will let this stand as my celebration of six years: the trend in my happiness and that of my family of choice has never, not once, faltered from us getting better the farther and the longer we stay away from the Crazymakers.

So breaking that shell and going through that pain has only ever been worth it.

Love,
Vanci

Leaving Isolation Behind

Isolation of the victim is one of the primary tools of all abusers.
Whether an abuser is of the pathologically personality disordered or the garden variety asshole vein, the removal of their chosen victim's external support will always rank high on the abuser's to-do list.  In the middle of a fire, a person with an exit plan behaves in an entirely different manner than a person who believes that they are hopelessly trapped.

In this respect, the goal of an abuser is to force their victim to be cut-off from outside help, or if that is not possible to force the victim to at least believe that if there is a way out, it's unreachable or undeserved.

When I was a child, I was held hostage as a member of the NFOO, both physically and emotionally.  The NParents couldn't hold up the shiny-happy mask that covered their absolute insanity for very long, so our family packed up and moved every single year.  Sometimes we'd make it for 18 months or so, but that was a stretch.  In retrospect, I think of them as locusts: show up, suck the life out every available resource, move on and leave the land dead.  In having any tenuous roots and branches of relationships to other people that I was able to establish as a little one yanked out every year - literally, I did not go to the same school two years in a row until my freshman and sophomore years of high school - I was being groomed to believe that the only people I was allowed to have long term relationships with were NM, ENF, NSis and GCYB.  Functionally, they were the only people in my childhood world.  And that meant that I had no way out.

There were no teachers who were able to know me well enough to step in, no counselors who knew me long enough to detect a pattern, no mothers or fathers of friends who heard or saw changes in my affect and worried about it.  No one was allowed to know me long enough to fight for me.  Any perceptive adult in my life who might have picked up on eccentricities, (if they caught me in a rare moment when I stepped out of line and peeked out from behind the iron mask of the Clan at all,) would have had to chase down the moving van to inquire after my well-being.  What a lonely, sad, isolated childhood that was.  It taught me that the few relationships that I did have - with the NFOO - were something very precious indeed and that I must preserve them at all costs.  Which is just what the NParents needed to keep me hauling on that party line.

Later in life, I discovered that I had difficulty maintaining relationships with outside parties for more than a couple of years.  I had trouble staying in the same job for more than a couple of years.  Small wonder, eh?

Even when they were no longer able to physically separate me from external parties, the Crazymakers still held sway over my relationships with others.  My friends became their friends, and then they'd drive in their wedges at every available opportunity.  When DH and I tried to establish our own holiday traditions, we were being selfish and cruel, so they showed up at our house anyway, uninvited, and stayed for dinner.  Shit, I'm 95% certain that NSis slept with my first husband the night before our wedding.

No wonder, I discovered that I had a hard time trusting people.  That I had a polite conversational voice that I'd use with people and that was it, I never would allow any truth to pass my lips that wasn't about the weather.  That when I hit it off with someone from 'outside,' I threw up walls to make sure that they wouldn't get any closer to me.  I felt toxic.  I gave up on ever having any close girlfriends at all.  I shut down. I stopped sharing myself with people at all.  I hid a lot.  I just knew that there was something wrong with me; that I just couldn't be a good friend.  I'd tell myself that a potential relationship wasn't worth the effort.  I only figured out later that what I'd really believed was that I wasn't worth the effort.

I was NC with the Crazymakers for a good while - I think about a year and half - before I began to let anyone in past the gate of politeness and into my real life, and even then I was more careful than Elmer Fudd hunting wabbits, which is to say verwy, verwy.  I spent entire relationships waiting to find out that I was being used, again, that I was fucking it up, again, that I didn't deserve a friend, again.  Some of those relationships made it through that painful and constant vetting process.  Some didn't.  For a long time I felt like I'd failed in those relationships that didn't spark or flamed out.  It just didn't occur to me at the time that I didn't HAVE to make it work.  After all, weren't my choices thus: take what you can get for as long as it's there, but don't get too attached, because it'll be taken away at any moment - or - don't get attached in the first place and pretend to be okay alone (or better yet, "Vanci, remember that your 'family' are the ONLY ones who will always be here for you.")

The Crazymakers even tried to destroy some of my fledgling relationships after I'd gone NC.  How crazy is that?  I refused to talk to them, but they sought out people with whom the N's had never had a relationship prior for the specific purpose of destroying new relationships that I had with those people by cornering those new friends of mine and listing of litanies of the Sins of Vanci.  Gawd, can you even imagine what some of those poor souls thought?  No wonder they mostly ran for the hills.

I kept trying to bring new people into my life, though, by conscientiously and carefully reminding myself  to leave one or two doors to my soul open - just a crack - because I didn't want to be alone in the world anymore.  And because the longer I stayed away from the Narcs and their legion of psycho-pets, the more I became aware of the fact that isolation from the external world was one of the ways in which they'd kept me under the Clan thumb.  Slowly, painfully, awkwardly... I made friends.

I found people with whom I shared similar interests - like sobriety, hardy har har.  As I got better, I found that people approached me with invitations - not just to Drink Wine and Buy Pricey Kitchen Stuff parties, either - but real, genuine, Hey We Think You Might Like This Movie Too kinds of outings.  Apparently, I'm a lot of fun to be around.  Who knew?

It was, for a very long time, uncomfortable to be vulnerable enough to get to know people and to let them get to know me too.  Uncomfortable is a mild word for it; it was often excruciating.  I discovered that I visit the bathrooms in public places quite often as a means to have a moment of composure alone.  And somewhere, somehow, I became okay with that, accepting it as just another of my many, many quirks.

Because as hard as they tried to keep me alone and without ties to those around me, without support from people whose goal is not to hurt me, I know their secret now and I have for awhile.

They don't know how to form meaningful relationships with anyone; they only know how to use and be used, hurt and be hurt.  They can't fucking stand it that I am absolutely surrounded by people who love me and whom I love back, because that's something that they will never, ever have for real.  The closest they ever came was when they had me all scapegoated and slavishly in their service, and that's never going to happen again.

My oldest DD is turning 17 within the next couple of weeks, and what she's decided to do for her birthday is to go to a nearby town with a group of her girlfriends for an outing.  She's known some of these girls since kindergarten, and she's close with a couple of the girls' moms, which is something that I am entirely grateful for.  The more people she has that love her in her life, the better off she is, in my opinion.  She said to me, "You don't mind that I won't be spending my whole birthday with you, do you?"

To which I laughed and smiled and told her that I love her but that spending your 17th birthday with your life-long girlfriends is the healthiest thing in the world.  Youngest DD had her 15th birthday a few weeks ago, and our house was filled with seven 14-15 year old girls, some of which have been friends since kindergarten as well.  I cooked for them and cleaned up after them and other than that, I stayed out of their way and let them have their night, which they took full advantage of until they crashed out at four in the morning.

Man, it's fucking awesome to see my girls living in that sea of friends, held up by the joy of their relationships that have nothing whatsoever to do with me.  Cycle: broken.

Love,
Vanci

Payouts

I was raised in a torture chamber - and I mean that in both the literal and metaphorical senses, depending on the particular day of my childhood, early adolescence and young adulthood that I'm discussing.  Like the senator's daughter at the other end of Buffalo Bill's basket full of lotion, I shouldn't have been able to get out of the carefully crafted pit my Nparents (and later on, their minions in NSis, GCYB and others) held me prisoner in.

But I did get out.  Sometimes I had help; ropes to safety lowered by people who were willing to save me by helping me to save myself.  Sometimes I didn't have any help at all, sometimes I was all alone in the darkness, and then I had to fight to stay alive, to stay sane, to stay focused on that proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.  I've discovered that a large part of healing has to do with finding the will to keep putting one foot in front of the other with an idea of that light as a goal.  I never stopped trying, and if I can credit myself with any part of my escape, it is that; I never stopped trying to find the way out.

I also got lucky, though, and to forget to acknowledge that feels criminal.

A lot of us don't get out, a lot of us don't make it.  I had many aborted and failed attempts at freedom before I found myself in the perfect storm of will, thought and circumstance that helped to propel me out of the hole.  I think that it's a chicken-or-the-egg question to wonder if I created all those ingredients or if I was simply blessed with their presence at the right time and the the right place, and it's one that I don't spend a lot of time looking for an answer to as the end result is the same; I'm out.  Well and truly out.

So I come here to write about that; what it was like and how it changed and how it is now.  I am as open as I can be in the real world and here about these things, but there are certain facts of my life that don't fit well into polite conversation while waiting in line at the grocery store or bank, that I don't drop casually into conversation at my daughters' sporting events or choir concerts.  I will talk about it if it's called for, but it rarely is.  My survival of the NFOO sadists and abusers is the focus of my conversation here, though, and I talk about the path of that survival a lot here.

So, tonight, a question that I don't often address; was it worth it?
All that struggle, all that pain of infinite change and chain-breaking, all the discomfort of prying open sealed closet doors and dragging moldy skeletons out into the light - is the life that I have now, in comparison to the life that I had before, worth all of that work?  I mean, I talk so much about what I've lost, what I no longer have, what I never had in the first place and what I may never have again.  What about the life that I have now; was it worth it?

Well, here's what I got out of it, ladies and gentlemen, here's an abbreviated list of the payouts.

At the point that I escaped from the NFOO, I had an almost failing marriage.  DH and I, we were okay in the sense that we both recognized that the DD's needed stability and we could provide that.  We didn't want to disrupt their lives any more than they already had been, so we had a mutual and unspoken agreement that we'd just ride this shitheap of a relationship out.  As I'm sure most ACoN's know, it's not easy to have a relationship of any kind when you spend every minute of every day lying to yourself in one way or another.

Now, though, DH and I are fantastic.  I'm realler than real, and he digs the real me.  I can see who he really is and I genuinely like the guy.  We are, ahem, in love.  More in love than we ever have been and we love spending time together; we have an awesome time just being in each other's company.  We are strong together and we both take time to seek understanding and joy in our relationship.  We're not perfect, but we merrily acknowledge our flaws and choose the ways in which we'll grow together.  My marriage is one of the highlights of my days, and that's been going on for several of the (NC) years.

My relationship with my DD's was pretty fragile at the end of contact with the NFOO.  The Girls (as they are affectionately known in our household) had been hurt by the N's, too, particularly in the sense that all the N's spent a healthy dose of energy undercutting the Girls' relationships with their mom and dad (DH and me.)   We're talking about giving them secret diaries to communicate behind my back with, leading them with questions about what they would do if their mom ever forbade contact, telling them stories about how fucked up I was as a teenager and planting the seeds to imply that they couldn't trust me.  Just your basic Narc arsenal stuff.

Now, though, the relationship between the Girls and me is good.  They're teenagers, so there's always something going on in their hormone fueled and developing brains and actions, but our relationship is normal by basic mother-teenaged daughter standards and dynamics.  I set boundaries - they test them.  We discuss.  They sometimes step out of those boundaries, and depending on the type of boundary it is, we either discuss expanding the boundaries (curfews) or we talk about the reason that their misstep just made the boundary tighter (not being where they are supposed to be or keeping in contact about their location.)  Either way, no matter what, love is never a card that gets thrown on the table.  Their self-worth isn't up for grabs.  They're learning how to be responsible for themselves, and I'm learning how to let them.  Pretty freekin' normal, I think.

When I escaped from the NFOO, one of my primary fears was the loss of relationships that I felt that I couldn't be without: mother, father, sister, brother, uncle.  I couldn't imagine a world in which I didn't have these family ties.  It felt scary to even contemplate their loss; like walking a tight rope with no safety wires or nets.

I did lose these relationships, but the gift of these losses was two-fold; first, I realized in that temporary void of those ties that the relationships I'd had in those categories were painful relationships that I didn't want to repeat.  Second, I realized that I could form a better version of these types of relationships with people who didn't share even a portion of my genetic code.  I have several close sister-like, brother-like and even mother-and-father-like relationships now with members of my family of choice; people that define these family roles as they should be, by their loving actions.  I reciprocate, too.

Even on the material front, I had suffered so many losses at the hands of the NFOO's training.  GCYB still, to this day, has not repaid a single red cent of the several thousand dollars that DH and I loaned him to start his business.  That was seven years ago and the business (from what I can tell) is now defunct.  We've long since paid off the loan that we took out for those funds for him, though, and without the additional financial burdens inherent in my Scapegoat role (paying NSis to 'watch' my children when she chose not to work, paying for every meal out ever eaten with them, paying for every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, paying for all the emergency needs that they always seemed to have, etc,) DH and I will be completely debt free (apart from mortgages) in the next month or so.

My drinking is my responsibility and I accept that.  In the struggle to get free, though, toward the end, my drinking escalated severely and any semblance of normal drinking melted utterly into my alcoholic spiral toward devastation.  My health, sanity and overall well-being were sincerely compromised.  I am only sober today because of NC with the NFOO.  They NEVER would have allowed my sobriety if they were still in the picture, and would have spent loads of time and energy sabotaging my sobriety if they'd been around.  Sober Vanci is a clear-thinking Vanci after all, and that's the LAST thing the Narcs want from their previously well-trained Scapegoat.

Due to my sobriety and the work that I needed to do on myself - which was made so incredibly apparent by the decision to go NC - I was able to land in a job/career that suits me to a T, in which I am appreciated, adequately compensated and valued.  This would not have happened when I was part of the NFOO; too much of my energy was being vamped away on a daily basis for me to pay attention to my job.

So, a quick wrap up list of the things in my life that are awesome without the NFOO in my life (that otherwise would not be so:)

My awesome marriage.
My fantastic relationship with my daughters.
My incredible group of supportive friends and FOC.
My fiscal well-being.
My ability to stay sober.
My fitting career and pleasure in my job.

Somehow, I think I got the best of the deal.

Love,
Vanci

The Purpose of Boundaries

I believe in setting boundaries.
I think that learning how to set boundaries around our homes, hearts, lives,souls, spouses and children and family of choice is a mightily important step for ACoNs to take.
Most of us weren't taught in childhood - when we should have been taught - to establish those crucial lines, buffers, stop-gaps and walls.  We weren't taught that we have a right to defend ourselves in body in spirit or mind.  We were taught that defending ourselves was tantamount to inviting increased pain, at least I was.

Learning how to defend myself and more importantly how to protect myself, has been a hard fought uphill battle of the last few years.  I've had to relearn stores of data in order to correct the system glitches that the Narcs implanted years ago.  It's involved serious contemplation of all the relationships around me and often I've been forced to the realization that some of the relationships I had - which I'd once thought were normal and healthy - were seriously messed up.

I've discontinued long term friendships with people whom I truly thought were on my side because as I've learned to control my controllables (read: ME) I've had to face the fact that many of these people were using me for my extraordinary Scapegoat Superpowers.  I've discontinued my relationship with sweet alcohol as I've become healthy enough to understand that what release I found in its tickly bubbles was both short-lived and false (plus, you know, it just plain quit working.)  I've discontinued doing the dance of the FFA - that's Fake Friends of America, you know what I'm talking about; the people who invite you to purse parties and talk about how fat they are and what diet pills work or brag about how super special their kids are and compliment you on your haircut and sharpen the knives of gossip and fakery incognito so that they can slip the blade in when you turn around to see what was on that plate of crudites.  I don't want anything to do with relationships that involve more than, oh, let's say 5% vague falsery, and only as it regards those subjects that fall under the heading of TMI, basically any topic involving the word 'discharge'. I'm okay with friends lying to me about that.

So, essentially, I have learned how to have a small amount of honest, truthful and full-disclosure relationships with other real people.  This is a good change in my life.

I have learned how to protect myself from potential relationships with dishonest, untruthful and sneakily fake relationships with fake people and their fake intentions.

Here's the thing, though.  Narcissists and those controlled by Narcs aren't either one of these types of people.  They're a whole different banana.

Now that I've taken a somewhat circuitous route around the ballpark, here's what I've come here to say tonight...

Locked doors keep out honest people, but thieves know how to pick the locks.
Fences make good neighbors, presupposing that the groups on both sides of said fence are willing to respect it.
A country's border doesn't mean anything once the rockets are launched.

When I began on my journey to learn how to protect myself, I thought that setting and holding boundaries would protect me, sure.  But I also thought that I was teaching other people how to treat me, that I was saying, "Hey, this is the line and I will only tolerate behavior that doesn't cross it," so that those others would stop crossing that line.  This is a natural thought process, I think, to a normal person.  When I drive, I stop at the line before intersections, not in the middle of them.  When I fly, I stop at the line on the floor that I'm not supposed to cross until the TSA lady waves me through.  That's what lines are for, designation of a change in the plane of existence.  Before the line, I do one thing.  After it, another.  It makes sense.

But Narcs don't respect lines, especially lines drawn by the Scapegoats, the ACoNs, the children, those whom they wish to control - basically everyone that they allow in their lives.
Locked doors, fences, unlisted numbers, space boundaries, borders: all these things are red flags to the bull-Narc's eyes.  They must possess, own, control, have it all.  I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too, and your children and your money and your spouse and your house and your time and your food and everything else you've ever had or might ever have.  That's the only boundary acceptable to a Narc; I get you all, or you get nothing.

So what have I learned?  I learned how to draw boundaries because I needed to learn how to do so in order to keep myself safe in the world.  I learned how to be clear, so clear, about what I need, what I'll accept, how I will accept it and the circumstances under which I will walk away.

I've learned that the people around me who respect these boundaries are the people in the world that I might potentially have a relationship with.  And those who cross these boundaries once are people whom I might still have a relationship with, as long as we can have an honest conversation about the line-crossing and come to an agreement that it won't happen again.

Most importantly, I've learned that the people who choose to trample my boundaries are the people that have no place in my life; they're the Narcs and the users and the abusers.  They're the lock-pickers, fence-jumpers, rocket-launchers and it's best to A) Stay the fuck away from them, B) Call the police when these people show up.

I set boundaries for me.
Anyone who chooses to cross them is doing nothing more than giving me absolute proof that they don't deserve to be in my life.

Love,
Vanci

Voices

There have been so many awesome posts up lately.  From the bloggers that were here when I arrived on this scene to the newly arrived, man, we're throwing some seriously good writing, great ideas and fan-fucking-tastic conversation around this ACoNverse.

I hear us talking about:
Overcoming fear.
Re-thinking doubts.
Standing tall.
Reaching out.
Our right to be heard.
Protecting ourselves.
Changing our minds.
Sharing our souls.
Spiritual journeys.

I hear us saying these things with:
Grace.
Intelligence.
Joy.
Humor.
Beauty.
Wisdom.
Hard-won experience.
Correctly directed anger.

I hear us saying that we are:
Stronger than we thought we were.
Able to take care of ourselves.
Smart enough to know better.
Willing to break our chains.
Wiser than we should be.
Willing to pass it on.
Hopeful for our futures.
Accepting of our reflections.
Gentle enough to help.
Kinder than kisses.

I hear a group of people who were intentionally and maliciously broken down to lower than low, laid flat by evil people, forced into subservience and humiliated at every turn, beaten to a pulp and left isolated and alone inches from death of one sort or another.

I hear that same group of people reaching out to each other and the world at large and speaking in their true voices, calling out to the stars and sea and saying, like all the little Whos in Whoville, We are here! We are here! We are here!

We talk so much about the Narcs.  We detail their offenses to the most minute fragment.  We re-live the power that they had over us, the horrors that they inflicted on us, the pain that they caused us and their shadows that still lurk waiting for us in so many dark alleys.  We have to, we speak out so that others can know.

We talk, too, about getting away from them, in inches or in leaps, and the how and the steps of that process.  We talk about surviving, cherishing, thriving, feeling, loving, living and the ways that all those states improve when we are Narc-limited, Narc-less, Narc-free.

They tried to make us theirs,all theirs; readily available for their consumption and soul-killing fulfillment.  And when they couldn't, they tried to make us monsters.  And in doing so, they discounted our strength and thereby created something that they fear.

To their dismay, their best efforts only served to create truth-tellers, light-seekers, hope-spreaders, joy-sharers, memory-keepers, path-walkers, precious human beings who will never be defeated.  We are not to be trifled with, we are stronger than strong, smarter than smart and I just have to say out loud that after jumping around and reading so many of the awesome posts and comments that have hit these pages in the last week or so that I've come to one conclusion.

We, my friends, in all our different incarnations, are some Bad Mother Fuckers.
And I love that about this place.
As TW says, BLOG ON!

Love,
Vanci

Fine and Angry

I wasn't going to write tonight.  I had other obligations and other things on my mind; some of it the normal grind of busy modern-ish life in a rural area and the daily life of a family household full of people lurching along on various tracks, some of it the types of activity that my overactive brain always allocates to the Life's Monkey Wrenches column of my daily compartmentalization.

I used to worry about that function, you know.  That absolute need to categorize certain things that I've just never been able to shake.  A place for everything and everything in it's place, as it were.  Spoons go in the spoon slot.  Socks go in the sock drawer.  Keys go on the hook.  Serial abuse by NFOO members goes in the isolation room at the center of my heart which used to have a much bigger padlock on it.  Or maybe the padlock's the same size and I just carry industrial strength lock cutters in my back pocket these days.

At any rate, I worried that dividing up my thoughts and feelings into little cubbie holes like so many shoe slots in a day care was bad for me, could even cause splintered memories and confusion.  One day my counselor said to me: "Vanci, a certain amount of compartmentalization can be a healthy thing, particularly when it comes to living your life while overcoming trauma."  So, you know, I've got a hall pass.

I was just sorting through the day, which included such new and dramatic turns as having a thermos full of coffee just freakin' explode for no reason as I stood next to it first thing this morning.  That took a bit to process - the space age glass inside the thing just went kerblooey and ended up looking like M.C. Escher had a fistfight with that mercury future cop from that terminator movie inside a plastic coffee thermos.  Trippy.  There was the power outage to deal with, no big deal as we have plenty of candles except that the well pump runs on electricity so no power also equals no water in the casa a la the People Who Are Crazy and/or Kind Enough to Live With Vanci.  Which, hey, as it turns it wasn't that big of a deal anyway as we found out that the well water test we ordered last week came back in and identified some potentially harmful bacteria in the well.  So, yay!  We shouldn't have been drinking the water anyway.  Oh yeah, and my car wouldn't start after work.  I married a mechanic, thank you powers that be because I am a car problem magnet on an evil X-Man scale, so that's no biggie.  Make the call, wait for the cavalry.  Just one more thing.

But you know, there's this full, lively, come what may rock star part of me that knows that I, we, will be fine. It's all going to be okay.  This is life.  Good shit happens to bad people, bad shit happens to good people, etcetera, etcetera and vice versa.  It's nothing personal.  Karma?  Maybe.  Kismet?  Maybe.  Stephen King-ish Dark Tower-esque life is a wheel speak?   Hells yeah.  It'll even out eventually.  And I dig that about me.  Bad day, yep, that sucks, but it's okay.  Some good things happened too.  I am the queen of the flip side, the ultimate silver lining seeker and finder.  I used to have to be, but there's a part of my personality that just goes there automatically - not as a dismissal of reality, I'm not babbling about some 'change reality through magical thinking' BS here, but I tend to see at least most sides to a thing naturally.  And there's always some good going on at the same time as the bad, and I like to acknowledge it.  Nothing about my life experience has ever been one dimensional.  So, like Bill Murray talking about the Dalai Lama in Caddyshack, I've got that going for me.

A haiku I wrote a while back for my daughters.  They call them momkus, fyi.

Make this idea truth;
You will always be okay,
Even when it isn't.

Cheesy and corny as it is, I believe that.  Not that it won't hurt in the middle of whatever 'it' is, but I believe in surviving, healing, working through and even if it takes awhile, eventually getting to okay and sometimes even all the way into the end zone of kick-ass awesomeness.

There's this thing that I realized today, as I said it, that I've said for a long time and it's true.  When the proverbial bacteria laced well-water hits the fan, I say,

"I've faced bigger demons."
Which is my way of verbalizing how it's easy, seemingly, for me to shrug the day to day crap that just happens off my shoulders.

For some reason, though, today, the truth of that phrase struck a nerve for me.  I've probably said it hundreds of times, and I have always known that it's true.  I really have stared into the abyss and walked away.  Not even remotely unscathed and unscarred, but damn it, I have walked away and that fucking counts.

Today I realized in a very concrete, visual way that when I say that, I am thinking of the demons that I have faced and often conquered; at the very least, all of those demons that I've faced are monsters that I have survived and lived to the tell the tale of the journey away from.  And those demons have names; they are my mother and my father and the creatures that they pieced together from rotten carcasses and spare parts in their lab of crazy; my sister and my brother, who eventually became their willing assistants.  And do you know what that mental picture means right now?

Make.  Vanci.  Angry.
That's why I'm writing tonight, because I am angry.  Why am I angry, you ask?
Well, I'm so glad you did!  Pull up a chair, I'll tell you.

I am angry because ANGER is the normal reaction of the healthy (ish, okay, ish!) psyche to being repeatedly and intentionally:
Manipulated
Harmed
Abused
Used
Set-Up
Trash-Talked
Diminished
Character assassinatd
Stomped on
Gaslit
And every other dirty stinking rotten horrible and awful thing that the monsters I was 'raised by' did (and would gleefully still be doing if I let them) to me.

Every story has two sides, they say and that is so true.  But what are we talking about when we say it has sides?  We're talking about perspective, feeling, inference, angles.  Hell, a story can have infinite sides when you look at it that way.  But what do those angles have in common?  Well, the story, of course.

And guess what the story that has all those different versions of telling really is?
Right here in the middle of the page, like a damn boulder:
THE TRUTH

And there is only one truth to a story.  There is only ever one set of facts that actually happened, no matter how it comes out of the spin cycle.  One truth to rule them all, on truth to bind them... no, sorry, got a little LOTR there.  Ahem.  Gollum.

My mother is a monster, straight from the forge of whatever greater overlord of dark places makes them.  She's a lying, narcissistic, child sacrificing, self-centered, master manipulating beast who refuses to acknowledge that she's ever, ever, done even a single thing hurtful to me, though she's likely sorry if I feel like I might have ever felt like it was possible that I misunderstandingly sort of thought that I felt hurt, though not because she hurt me, though, because she doesn't recall and she can't really think of when that might have happened, though it certainly couldn't have been that bad.

My father is a monster, also courtesy of the Demons R' Us customize-able order form.
He's a yelling, hitting, molesting, lying, self-centered child-hurting slimeball who hides behind titles and wives and other children and has always found a way to slip the noose and come out smelling as rosy as a two-bit shyster can smell and who's never apologized for hurting me at all because after all wasn't that a long time ago, like yesterday, and wouldn't Jesus want us to forgive the transgressions of the past after all and pave our way into a better, -
(sorry, just threw up a little in my mouth)

All of those things ^ there, what are they?  They're the truth.

And what am I?  I'm the little girl who lived through that and grew up to get out, get better, be better.  I broke that mold and doing so broke me for awhile just like the inside of that thermos shattered into a million pieces this morning and all of the shit they fed me poured out all over the place.  And I cleaned it up and I bleached the hell out of it and I started over again.  I've done it different.  I've rebuilt it, better, stronger.  Like a mobster with a new name, I'm out, and they couldn't drag me back in to their den of horrors for all the saltwater in the seven seas.

But I'm angry, yes I am.  Because when I have a bad day and I remind myself of the truth that I, we, will be okay, I have to also remember all the times that I haven't been, for awhile, because they tried so hard to take the ability to be okay away from me.

I'm angry as hell and I have a right to be.
I won't apologize for my anger any more than I would apologize for my happiness or my insane sense of humor.  It's an emotion, a perception, a feeling.
My anger doesn't rule me, it's an emotion and I am ruled by one thing, baby.
The truth.  Cold hard facts.  Just me and every detective Elmore Leonard ever made me love.

But I am also going to be okay, I am going to be fine, fine, possibly even finer than frog's hair.

I accept that I can be both.  After all, I've faced down bigger demons.

Love,
Vanci

Standing Ground (with tired feet)

I had a busy comment day; not something that I can normally keep up to pace on, but I had a little break today and spent more time hanging out here in the ACoN Healing Garden than I'd normally be able to.  In that back and forth, my dialogue with the lovely mulderfan reminded me of a situation - an 'incident' if you like - that occurred about two months ago.

I took my youngest DD to her high school orientation; a poorly planned and abso-freekin'-lutely excruciating event that the school thought would best be held on a Monday night.  After work.  Two hundred fourteen year olds plus their parents, all tired, all hungry, all ready to just get this shit over with already, packed into half a gym.  The smell alone would make an NFL player want to cry.  There's only one reason to go to these things: to get the child's schedule for the upcoming school year.  And the administrator's know this and are completely willing to use that as the carrot on the stick to allow them to keep you as a captive audience to force you to listen to why the upcoming levy vote is so important and to reassure you that they care about your child's test scores almost as much as your vote.  (Also to let you know that should you vote no, your child's favorite extra-curricular activity or elective class or sport, whatever that may be, will likely be cut, just saying.)  But it's the only window they'll allow for your child to get their schedule before school starts, and who's in what class is a terribly important thing for fourteen year olds to know.

After enduring the torturous, long, boring, inane speeches from everyone who apparently means something in the land of middle-of-the-road academia, we were released from the sardine-packed bleachers.  We had high hopes, yes we did, of getting through with this thing at a decent hour.  We were op-to-mis-tic.  We were naive.

After standing in the world's longest line outside of DisneyLand, we were given the schedule.  Then we had to stand in line to pay fees for classes on the schedule.  Then we had to stand in line to be let into the hallways so that the children could find the classrooms on the schedule.  Then we had to stand in line to find out why the child had a blank period on her schedule.  Then we had to stand in line to have a photo taken for the ASB card, which we'd already paid for after standing in line at the ASB table.  Then we had to stand in line in order for the child to get a locker.

I mean, it was my version of hell; the only thing missing was the Kenny G muzak.  Chaotic, foot and hormone smelling hell.  And that's before we even stood in line to go to the damn bathroom.

One of the longest lines was the line for photos, who knows why.  We kept walking by it between standing in this line and that, and I thought that surely if we waited, that line would have to grow shorter, right?  Simple mathematics.

TWO HOURS LATER, after we'd make it through every other line and jumped through ever other hoop, the photo line was just as long, but it was the only one that we had left.  C'est la vie, thought me.  We got in line.

My DD happened to know the two girls who came to the line right behind us, so we turned and began to chat, keeping always an eye on the movement of the line ahead of us so as to keep shuffling forward like so many tired, sweaty cattle.

You know when you're standing in a line or stuck in a lane of traffic, and you're just inching forward one painful millimeter at a time and you've all but resigned yourself to the snail's pace that you're moving at, and then someone up ahead makes a sudden exit?  Suddenly you can move forward inches at a time, feet even, sometimes - gasp! - yards and meters!  Hooray!  It's sad to be reduced to that level of exultation, but I was there.

The group of people in front of us suddenly gave up and left.  We could move forward to the tune of  a space previously occupied by six bodies!  And there he was.

I haven't seen my Golden Child Younger Brother in a long time, but he looks just the same.  And there he suddenly was, six inches in front of me with a child that I assume is is stepson.  I know he was married a couple of years ago, to a woman that I've never met.  Needless to say, I didn't receive an invitation to the event.  But this place that I live is a small town, and I do keep my ear close to the ground in order to have the earliest notice possible of approaching Narc stampedes and ambushes.  So I knew about his new ready made family, without really knowing anything about them.

And here's the meat of this post - or the main veggie course if you swing that way.

I used to be terrified of running into my Former Family Members.  Seriously, I'd be in the grocery store and see someone who looked like one of them and I'd turn on a dime to head a different direction.  I reacted to even the thought of running into them viscerally.  Nausea, headache, cold chills, hot flashes, muscle weakness, shakes; basically all of the terror reactions rolled up nice and neat into a gut bomb and dropped on me.

Then I had a couple of close calls, fast moving brushes of the shoulder type of deals.  I'd get out of the public place I was and slide in my car and then think, "Hey, wasn't that....?"  I wasn't given time to react until after the fact in those situations, and I noticed that I did feel the horror reaction, but to a lesser extent.  Then I realized one day that GCYB and my nephew were right behind me in line at the convenience store of all places and I just didn't give a crap.  You can read about that here.

I saw the progression of my evolving reaction and interpretation of these events as a plus, a sign of healing, and I was grateful for that.  To feel nothing, to detach, is really the only option I have when it comes to these people.  There won't ever be any relationships there, and my acceptance of that fact as a matter of small steps has been crucial to my journey to get well.

But this was different.  It felt a bit like the brass ring.  My 'reaction' wasn't really that at all.  I didn't get nauseous or scared.  I didn't have to ponder or contemplate what I should do.  I didn't have to run away.

My thoughts went something like this: "I'm not going anywhere.  I've been waiting in lines for two hours, this is the last one and I'm not wasting one more damn minute in this place than I have to.  I haven't done anything wrong, I shouldn't have to leave, and I won't.  If I make him uncomfortable, he can leave and go to the back of the line."

I didn't doubt this course of action for a second, even when he - in a grand show of the maturity level of fledgling Narcs and Golden Children - kept turning around to make sad "oh-I-miss-you-so-much-and-if-your-mom-wasn't-such-a-bitch/devil-we-could-all-be-together" googly eyes at DD.  I just made sure to look straight at him when he tried this and he broke off contact every single time.  Gawd forbid we have a conversation.  It's better to just try to make the child feel guilty, right?

The last time I spoke to him, five-ish years ago, he told me that he "couldn't forgive me" and "couldn't talk to me without feeling too much rage to handle."  This kid held a knife at my throat when I was 16 and he was 14 because he thought my boyfriend at the time (whom we'd known for years as a family friend,) should be only his friend.  Threaten much?

Eventually, millenia later, as we began to approach the halfway point of the line, he went off to sit in some of the auditorium seats far away from us, where I could see him furiously texting away on his cell phone.  Hmmmm, I wonder what he was talking about?  I actually did laugh out loud when I saw that.  "Quick, send flying monkeys!  I need backup!"

DD and I talked about it later, and she was saddened by it, "He looked so sad!" she said.  And I calmly explained that if he were a good person, he wouldn't have cut us out of his life and then expected that she, as a child, should bare the burden of that absence by making sad faces at her, as if she had any control over it.  If he was a good person, he would have tried - as I did with him, to no avail - to build a relationship outside of the Crazymaker Clan.  (A small note:  he and his new wife and her two sons - 14 and 18- all ALSO live at the NParent's house.  It's like a fucking commune of crazy out there.)

But my point is this.  I used to be terrified of them.  Then I was scared.  Then I was sort of indifferent.  And now, as I was reminded earlier today of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut line ever, "You (they) can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut!  You (they) can take a flying fuck at the MOOOOOOOON!"

I think it applies, and I hope they have a pleasant journey.  I'm not going anywhere.

Love,
Vanci

Facing Fear

Some of my earliest memories involve fear.  I was, as a child, and still am, as an adult, afraid of all sorts of things.  Some of my monsters are real and rational, some are the stuff of vapor.  Some have a chance of coming to life in the light of day, some only have a chance of taking form if I wake up tomorrow and discover that there's a Statue of Liberty half buried on the beach, that kid from the Twilight Zone who turns his dad into a jack in the box has moved into my town and H.P. Lovecraft was a sci-fi Nostradamus.  

Regardless of the likelihood of my fears, though, what exists on every plane through every possible or impossible scenario of terror, what resonates in every cell of my being is this single truth in relation to those fears; the fear itself is real.  That physical, visceral response when I'm scared that sets all my internal alarm bells ringing, that's tangible.  When I am scared, my pulse shoots through the roof, my breath quickens, my muscles tighten and ready for a flight or fight response.  Adrenaline courses through me and my senses become hyper-aware.  My fists clench and my jaw tightens, the fine hairs on my neck and arms stand on end.  I can hear the faintest sounds, feel the slightest touch, see the tiniest movement.  I'm ready, I'm switched on - because that fear is real.  It's telling me that there's danger.  It's telling me that I will have to take action.  It's telling me that I am afraid because there is something to be afraid of. 

I was terrorized.  

Let me state this again in more detail for the sake of clarity.

My mother and father terrorized me throughout my childhood, and my mother and father allowed each other to terrorize me.  When I realized that they were hurting me and stood up for myself, they terrorized me further still by convincing me that I was either deserving of the terror, OR (just to make sure they had a back door,) that the terror didn't really exist.  

They did this because they are sick, twisted, mean, evil, abusers.

They terrorized my sister and brother too, and I have empathy for those childhood siblings of mine.  But NSis and GCYB dealt with the terror by becoming terrorizers, too.  So they no longer have my empathy, sympathy or any other -athy. 

My childhood of torture at the hands of the master manipulator Crazymakers left me with pain, scars and fear.  Facing fear all the way through to resolution as a child, particularly as a child with no external support, is almost impossible.  So a child, this child, me, I, used the only tool at my disposal; I made it ok.  I pretended.  I  pretended, specifically, that it wasn't as bad as it truly was, and this is how I survived.  

So I grew up.  Allow me to be clear, again, about how the torture and terror of my childhood ended.  It became the torture and terror of my adolescence, and I was so ingrained with the imaginary storybook family that I'd created in order to survive that I just kept pretending.  So they just kept torturing and terrorizing me.  Childhood terrorization became adolescent terrorization became adult child terrorization.  

Bang up job on being consistent, mom and dad.

And then I changed.  It didn't happen overnight - it was a process to get to the jumping off point, but one day I made a stand.  I decided that I wasn't going to allow them to terrorize and torture me anymore, no matter the cost to me, real or imagined.

I had to run the worst case scenarios in my head and in my conversations with the real and true people in my life who loved me in order to get to this point, because I had to find a way to actualize the fear on my own before I faced the real fear of the Crazymaker affront.  I ran the cost/benefit models over and over while asking the questions that I needed answers to before I could make a stand and keep it.

Some of the first ask and answer sessions with myself went like this: 

"Is it really that bad?" I asked. 

"Well, maybe not, but it hurts..." 

"Could it be you?" I asked. 

"Well, maybe, but not all of it..." 

This segued into something like: 

"Don't you have a right to an opinion?" I asked. 

"Well, I think I should, but I never really have..."

"Shouldn't you be able to have space?" I asked.

"Well,  I think I should, but they might not like it..."

And eventually (this is where it would be helpful for you to think of one of those old cut-scenes in a movie where the shot is of the calendar pages being ripped off one by one in quick succession,) the Q and A became something like: 

"You have a right to be treated with respect, right?" I asked. 

"Yes, I do." 

"If you lose them in your life like they're promising, is that the end of the world?" I asked. 

"No, it's not." 

"Are you ready to stand?"

And the answer was yes, you know.  I was ready to stand even though I was afraid because I'd finally come to understand that my fear of the outcome (losing my 'family') was more manageable than my reality of the pain of having them in my life.  

They're crazymakers, pain dealers, emotional terrorists.  And they're so good at it that they made me believe - with their primary tool of fear - that leaving them would be even more painful than continuing to let them hurt me.  Once I understood that fear was the thumb they kept me under, I could face it.  I could own it and look it in the eye and say, "Yep, I'm scared.  Terrified in fact, but I've faced bigger, stronger demons than this fear." 

And that's when I knew I'd survive, at the very least.  I hoped - only a little bit, just a little tiny bit - that I would find a way to be ok, even.  I never thought I'd be me the way I am now; 

Happy. 

Healthy. 

Free of motherfuckin' fear.

But I'm glad I am, and I'm glad I had that little bit of courage that it took to face my fear, because what follows is one of the most important lesson that I've learned in life, and I wouldn't have learned it without the very real fear that the Narcs taught me: 

When we've been raised, instructed and taught by evil people, we've been taught to fear that which will set us free.

That's a lesson they didn't mean to teach me, you know, because it set me free.  And that was the last thing in the world that they wanted. 

So, here I am, and I still have my residual fears; heights, talking apes, spiders, the smell of Old Spice, dark, clowns with pointy teeth, deep water, man-sized wind up toys, aliens that look like giant ice cream cones with sixty-two eyes and telepathic powers.  You know, the run of the mill stuff.  I work through them as they come up.

But I no longer fear myself.  And I no longer fear doing what it takes to protect myself.  

I'll take that trade. 

Love,

Vanci

Heartbreak and Freedom

In my Help a Sister Out post, KFL5 asked some pertinent and difficult questions, and you wonderful readers really stepped up to the plate to share your experience and hope with her.  Thank you, thank you, thank you. My finger's all healed now and I can type again, yay!, so I wanted to add a few of my minimal cents.

The question, "Anyone else deal with the heartbreaking feeling of abandonment when you are finally able to set some emotional boundaries?" was the one that really resonated with me; the one I keep going back to.

Oh, ouchie, I remember this feeling.  I had to dredge a bit to get back to it, combing through memories that feel like ancient history but are really just a few short years ago.  I want to start by saying that I don't feel this anymore.  Feeling abandoned required that I had ever felt like I belonged in the first place.  For some time, I DID feel this.  I'd always had the NFOO in my life and they did an excellent job of filling up my every waking moment with their demands and needs and convincing me that my worth was directly related to their happiness, so at first, absolutely, I was stranded on a metaphorical deserted island all by myself, or at least that's how it seemed.

Circumstances and force of will kept me in that lonely place, even when I was tempted to just give in and jump back into my previously allotted role within the fucked up painful system that was all I'd known as 'family.'  It felt, a lot of the time, like the wind was just whistling through the gaping hole in the middle of my soul.  Even the horrible something that we've known can be more comfortable to have than the emptiness of uncertainty.  I feared the void, but not quite enough to want to fill it back up with the awfulness that was the NFOO.  Almost, but not quite.

Still, I was shocked and wounded that these people who'd claimed to 'love' me could turn on me so easily, so quickly, so thoroughly.  Even worse, their abandonment was made worse in that it proved to me that the feeling I'd always had that I would be dropped like a hot rock if I didn't do exactly what they told me to do was fact.  I couldn't chalk up my insecurities to my own overactive imagination anymore (and after all they'd trained me so well to do so.)  Their abandonment of me made me realize what was true; they really didn't love me and I was just their scapegoat, object, pawn - not even a person, just something to be used at their convenience and to their ends.

The isolation that they imposed after my stand was nothing short of what they'd always threatened.  They refused to speak to me rationally, they refused to be civil, they made it a point to reach out to every single person that we knew mutually and rally as many of those people as they could against me.  Effectively, I said, "This is what I need to feel safe, this is the space that's acceptable to me, this is the way I'd like to communicate."
And they replied with attacks on my character, attacks on my mental health, attacks by proxy through my children, attacks on me behind my back and to my face and to anyone with half a minute and the ability to hear the attacks they manufactured against me.  Attack, attack, attack.  I asked for space and they launched the armada.

It was awful.  It was heartbreaking.

But, the last thing that I had in common with the NFOO was this: we both underestimated my strength of character.
I'm certain that they are still, five years later, baffled that I haven't come crawling back to them.  When I met with NM in my counselor's office in June, she let her expectations of my behavior slip out between the lines of her carefully crafted speech when she stated (talking about NSis) that "some people in our family are more willing to forgive than others."  She - and therefore they, let's not forget that the NFOO follows the whimsy of NM, always - can't understand a Vanci outside of her own framework.  In her mind, I am wrong and it's only a matter of time before I seek her absolution for my sins.  The twisted logic and warped mind behind that particular curtain is fucking mind boggling.  Incidentally, when I called her on this bullshit, the conversation went South FAST.

I underestimated myself, too.  In truth, it was their actions that pushed me further and further in my resolve to stop the abuse and break the cycle.  The crazier they got in their need to control me, attack me, win at all cost, the clearer I became in my boundaries.  Every time they crossed a line, I drew a firmer, bolder, tighter circle around myself and the FOC.  Bet they never saw that coming!  (And I didn't really either until I did it!)

So, that deserted and abandoned feeling abated in direct proportion to what became my choice to live a life apart from them.  It is, after all, impossible to feel abandoned by something that one's chosen to leave.  And the longer I stayed away, the more difficult it's become for me to see how the hell I ever stayed there in the first place.  There's truth to the saying, "Once known, a thing cannot be unknown."  Sometimes I think they're like a black hole; get too close to the vortex and it'll suck you in; try to get away and you'll discover that it takes an awful lot of power to get out of proximity.  The best plan once you've got a little distance is to lay on the warp drive and never look back.

And that's what I feel now.  Not abandonment, not heartbreak, not even sadness most of the time.  I feel... free.  I feel like I took a lot of bullets but somehow managed to dodge the widow maker that had my name on it.  I feel like a hungry shark swam into my legs and then got distracted by something in the opposite direction.  I feel like I missed the launch of the Titanic and got left on the dock with my ticket in hand.  I feel like I somehow, someway, got a pass and a chance at a whole new life, one that is only possible without the Crazymakers in it.

Cause this life I've lived without them?  It's so, so, so much better than it ever was with them.  I had to get some road behind me to see that, to feel that, to be able to embrace that, but it's the truth.  I had to go through those awful feelings of loneliness and heartbreak and abandonment to come out the other side with the innate, deep-seated knowledge that people who love me don't seek to make me feel those things.


And once I had that under my belt, it became easy to look around and see the large group of people that were by my side all along rooting for me and holding their arms out to me in genuine concern and care and love for me just the way I am.  Now that's freedom, baby.

I'll close with this:
It gets better.
It gets so much better.

Love,
Vanci

What Changes?

I've had a couple of people ask me lately the same basic question, though phrased differently and in different contexts from each other.  I'm open about my background and as transparent as I can appropriately be about what I've experienced in my life, how I've overcome abuses I've suffered and how I think/feel/live, so I get a lot of these types of questions.  I have a fairly large capacity for self-inspection, which is certainly not something that I try to hide, and my openness about my emotional journey attracts all sorts of folks who are seeking something in their own lives.  

The question I've been getting is something along the lines of: How do you decide to change?  

How do we get away from abusive people?  Declare boundaries and hold them firm?  Determine what is appropriate treatment and what is abuse?  How do we decide that or when enough is enough and most importantly, how do we know when and that we can take definitive action? 

We talk a lot in these communities about the steps that we take once action is determined to be necessary, and that is of IMMENSE value.  In leaving an abusive family system or relationship(s), we're sailing off blind into uncharted (at least by us so far in life) waters.  Thar be monsters thar, matey.  The experience of others who've been before us or are journeying with us is incredibly important to have.  But, before we rig up the sails and leave port, we've made a decision to do so.  What dictates that timing, I wonder?

It's different for everyone, I'm sure.  I read a lot of our stories that seem to have a jumping off point that's the result of cumulative abuse over years, lifetimes.  We've been fed, as DH puts it, little spoonfuls of shit for long enough to be tired of eating shit.  (Bless that man for his colorful descriptions!)

Often there's no MAJOR ORDEAL that is the final atrocious act that pushes us into action, it's just yet another Everyday Abuse or Narc Attack or Crazymaker Tactic.  Often it's no different from the way that we've been treated daily... forever.  But it's the last time, it's the metaphorical straw across our backs and we snap, we've had enough, we spit the shit out of our mouths, we create a wall or a boundary and this time we stick by it, we fortify our defense and we take a stand.

Sometimes there is a major event that pushes us over the line from passive Scapegoat to Defender of Self (or FOC.)  But, for ACoNs, I can almost guarantee that whatever that big final event is, we've dealt with it or something like it before.  So why do we finally wake up and choose to act or react differently than we always have before? 

The Narcs don't change, the abusers don't change, I honestly believe that they are only as capable of change as they are willing to look within and that they are as a whole, completely unwilling to do so.  So, they keep trying to destroy us in the same what that they always have.
Therefore, it's logical to conclude that WE are what changes.  Something in us changes at the end and we become capable and willing to change the game, even if it means - as it almost always does - turning our entire worlds upside down and dealing with the full-blown rage and power of the Narc and Minion Crazymaking Machine.

It was a long time coming, for me, and I don't remember having an Aha moment where everything suddenly became clear.  It was a process to get to the point of willingness, and the fear of loss I had in stepping out of the NFOO's expectations of me was very real.  They'd always been able to express to me clearly that if I stopped towing the company line, I'd be exiled, ostracized, thrown out, worthless to them.  For most of my life, they had the power to erase me as I believed that without them I wouldn't be worthy of existence.  

But, there was some thin wire of steel that found its way into my heart and mind, and I finally had the strength to make a stand.  I wasn't expecting the World War III that my stand cracked open.  It took me by surprise and I was seriously shell-shocked... but.  Something new happened after that final confrontation.  I continued to stand.  That was a first.  

I don't know, still, why I knew that I could remain standing, take it, move on, grow, learn and be better without them that time.  But, I do know for a fact that the final stand was the first time that I reacted to their assault with further resistance.  I made mistakes, sure, and allowed too much discourse, false conversation and wish I'd known how to shut the door completely and immediately.  But, even with my occasional back-sliding and mis-stepping, I still kept moving forward, away from them and their (increasingly easy to spot and avoid) craziness.  

And I know this, too; the longer I stood, the clearer it became that I was making the best possible choice.  

Now, with the perfect clarity of retrospect, I can see it exactly as it progressed.  I know what I did right and I know what I did wrong and I know that I am better off without them than I ever even could have had the possibility of being with them.  

I still don't remember everything; some abuses still lay dormant in me and occasionally one will bubble up as further proof of my rightness in defending myself and discontinuing my relationship with these awful people who called themselves my family.  But, I remember enough to know that the source of my strength in breaking the cycle came from within me.  I'm the one who changed, and I'm ever so glad that I did. 

Love,

Vanci

Change and Crustaceans

I've been thinking about myself - not in a weird self-centered mirror, mirror on the wall type of way - more along the lines of end of the year reflection upon who I am these days and what I like about me and what I'd like to change.

At this busy, busy time of year and with these thoughts rattling around between my ears, it occurs to me; change is hard work.  I mean really hard.  Over the last four years I feel like I've become the emotional equivalent of a marathon runner.  I've worked so hard to reclaim my inner Vanci, and whether that's meant recognizing that alcohol was killing me instead of my problems and therefore drying out or going trough the painful steps in tearing away the wrong-taught NFOO family system that I was starting to duplicate in my FOC and replacing it with a better way, I have trudged the road.

Have I arrived at my destination?  Nah.  But I'm a lot further on the road to freedom and happiness than I'd have ever thought I could be.  That progress, that hard-won and fought for progress is a direct result of me changing me.  Regardless of why I needed to change or how I did it, man oh man alive, it's been worth it.

And that willingness, I think, is the key that has unlocked so many previously forbidden and hidden doors.  My desire to be better has in so many ways translated into my ability to do and be so.  It occurs to me that my desire and willingness is what separates me from the Narcs.

They've proven to me over and over again that what they want is not to make themselves better.  They don't want to make their relationships with me or anyone else better.  What they want is to keep me on their level, to get me back into functioning in the role that they assigned me and that I chose to assume for so long because it makes them feel better, no matter the cost to me.  I've wanted to change me for the better, and they've wanted me to change back to what they think is better for them.  Not only is their desire implausible, it just doesn't create any good results.

DH has told a truly insightful story to our DDs on many occasions - to eye-rolls every time - of the Crabs in the Pot.  Usually he tells it when we are discussing some friend or group of friends that the DDs are having trouble with or who are having trouble themselves.  It goes like this:
If you put a bunch of crabs in a pot of water and slowly bring it to a boil, they'll all die.  In that space of time where the water is starting to heat, they should all be able to crawl out, but they don't.  Why?  Because as soon as one crab gets above the fray and heads for the top, the other crabs in the pot grab onto it with their crabby little claws and pull the potential survivor back in.  And they all die together.

*Insert melodramatic teenage eye-roll here*

He's right, though, and I love that the moral of the story when he tells it is this; to survive the other crabs in the pot, you have to NOT GET IN THE POT in the first place.  You have to change the entire scenario.  You have to change.  You have to be willing to be separate, apart from, isolated, lonely, cast out, even if it means you're shivering in the cold for a while while the rest of the crabs are riding out that apparent bubble bath.
The result of that change is different for everyone, I assume.  But I know that for me, it's meant freedom.  Joy.  Peace.  Laughter.  Looking in the mirror and liking what I see.  Having genuine relationships and being an authentic person.  What fantastic rewards have come to me just for being willing to change!

I'm still open and willing to healthy change that leads me in a better direction, and they're not.  Sad as that may be for them, I think I'll stay out of the pot nevertheless.  Indefinitely.

Love,
Vanci

P.S.  No crabs were hurt in the writing of this post.

Narc Denial in Action ... continued

"Well, I know you won't believe me, but I just don't remember any of that."

This statement from NM really could stand on its own as a clear definition of the narcissist's ability to completely re-write any situation in order to suit her needs.

A normal person remembers the turning points in their loved ones lives, and those revelations were a turning point for everyone in our FOO.  That series of events when I was thirteen years old revealed the true character of everyone in the FOO and pointed each member in the directions that we would head in for several years. 

NM took the narc reigns firmly in grasp because of those events and cemented her place as El Victim Supremo.  EF gave up his job as a minister because of those events, and began the kowtowing to NM lifestyle that he still lives today because of those events.  OS blamed me (faulting the victim for bringing it up rather than the abuser for commiting the crimes) and launched her massive campaign of denigrating Vanci and learning how to be a bigger Narc than either NM or EF ever had been.  And YB learned that no matter the situation, he was the Golden Child and therefore got a pass. I became so numb due to the pain those events caused me that I began to seek anything, and I do mean anything, that might make me feel... something.

We're talking about a life-changing, seismic shift  in the character, behaviors, roles, hopes and actions of every single person in the FOO (and really in the world, if we consider how isolated the Crazy NP's kept us.)  Everything changed, absolutely, positively everything.

And she really can't remember it. 

Holy fucking hell, what a frustrating moment.

There is no appropriate response to this outright denial of a true, actual event, that I'm aware of.  Any attempt to refute such a claim seems pointless and reminds me of a saying:  Never argue with the village idiot; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience.  I simply said nothing. 

Of course, NM needed to fill that uncomfortable silence.  Now, with a little time and distance from the conversation, I like to envision that I could hear air raid sirens at this point in the meeting.  Danger!  Danger!  Take cover!  It's about to get worse!

"You have to understand, Vanci, that I was in shock.  I mean, you'd known about what you'd been through for years but it was news to me.  I probably didn't react exactly right, but I was truly in shock."

Oh.  My.  God.  Here's a little snippet of the jumbled thoughts running through my mind at that point.  I don't have to understand anything about you... of course it's about you and your shock.  Did you really just tell me that I was better prepared at thirteen to deal with my father's sexual abuse of me than you were as my parent because I'd had to carry that sick knowledge for years and you hadn't?  Did you really just demean the fact that my minister father sexually abused me repeatedly by referring to it as 'what I'd been through,' rather than it what it really was - exploitative, horrendous, abominimal, outright abuse committed by a 'trusted' adult against an innocent child?  Probably didn't react exactly right?  There's no probably or right about asking me to lie to cover the abuser's ass so that you didn't have to give up any comforts.  Holy hell.  You did.  Holy hell.

Here's what I said, "I was THIRTEEN!"

Here's what she said,
"You seem to think that we should all be perfect, like you think you are."

"NM, I don't think I'm perfect.  And I certainly haven't handled the situation with you perfectly, and I do have regrets, but most of them are of the fact that I didn't cut off contact sooner." 

And... that was pretty much the end of the session, at least in my mind.  There were a few more salient moments, such as when NM tried to tell me that I've always been 'stubborn,' but really none of them mattered to me.  We ended the session with NM saying, "I don't feel like we've solved anything!  How do we move forward?"  My counselor wisely suggested that I would need some more time to think about the answer to that question. 

And now I know the answer.  It's simple; we don't.  There's nothing real or true in that relationship; there's no love, no empathy, no concern, no care.  There's an evil, toxic woman approaching the end of her life and looking to use any illness that she can manufacture to force enough sympathy for her to get everyone right where she wants them.  At one point she said, "You know, Vanci, with all my medical problems I just want to see things right before I die.  And now I have Parkinson's hanging over my head as a possibility, too..."

One of my DD's has a chronic disease that was a long time in diagnosis.  I've done a ton of research on various auto-immune and terminal diseases as a result of this, so I know a little about Parkinson's.  Enough to know that Parkinson's is an incurable, terminal disease and that we don't really understand who gets it and who doesn't until a person is diagnosed with it.  So, really, don't we all have Parkinson's hanging over our heads as a possibility?  LOL. 

What a sad, sad waste of an otherwise healthy life.  What a shame that she had to try to bring so many other people down into her pit of despair with her. 

What a blessing that I don't have to take that journey with her, ever again.  What a good thing it is to be free of her chains. 
In the words of the late, great Kurt Vonnegut Jr., she can take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut!  She can take a flying fuck at the Mooooon!

Good riddance.
Love,
Vanci