Alone Isn't Always Lonely

I always knew that when the I finally decided to make my Stand against the NFOO, I would 'lose' them in my life.  I can't even type that word in the same sentence as my label for them without putting it in hashmarks; if we were talking face to face I'd make air quotes a la Chris Farley as I said that word in connection to the abusive members of my family of origin.  That's how distasteful the thought of fearing my 'loss' of then seems to me now that I can reminisce about the amount of time that I flat out wasted trying to make sure that they stayed in my life.

I'm just going to say it as it needs to be said; 'losing' my evil, narcissistic (and enabling) mother, my abusive, enabling, narcissistic father, my narcissistic (and sadistic) older sister and my golden child, enabling, younger brother as participants in my life is the BEST THING THAT HAS EVER HAPPENED TO ME.  Please note that the underlined, bolded, italicized and capitalized nature of the last part of that run on sentence is entirely intentional.

If only I could have shaken them sooner, I often think.  If only they'd been easier to lose.  Like single socks from a pair in the dryer, why couldn't it have been like that?  One minute here, one minute gone.  Such is life.

Oh, but I spent scads of time completely convinced that I simply wouldn't be able to continue living if I didn't have them in my life.  I convinced myself and everyone around me that No Contact simply wouldn't, couldn't happen.  It was unthinkable.

A big part of that deep seated, ingrained belief that I must not, ever, be cast out from the Crazymaker Clan was simply learned.  They had, after all, pounded this absolute truth of theirs into my head and heart from a pre-verbal stage on.  I was convinced before I could speak that I must never, at any cost, leave them or - more scary - do something that would give them a reason to kick me out.  I rebelled, sure, but I got burned enough times to come crawling back with my tail between my legs like the family dog.  I acted out only far enough to prove their point that I couldn't survive without them to myself, never realizing that they'd set me up to fail in just that way.

I graduated from high school with a 3.47 in honors classes drunk, literally drunk at my graduation, which always makes me wonder what I could have done with a little support.  But do you know that even though I had a four years older sister (who was only two years ahead of me in school as I moved up and she moved down, go figure,) who was IN COLLEGE at the time, neither of my 'parents' ever once even talked to me about what my post-graduate plans would be?  Wait, I take that back.  NM did tell me once, with that half-disappointed, half-gleeful smirk that N's manufacture so well, that they were sorry, but there wouldn't be any college money for Vanci, just not a single red cent.  They didn't have it.  NSis's college bills were just mounting up to too much.  And when I asked what I was supposed to do?

She told me that she was certain I was smart enough to figure it out.  I turned 17 less than a month before my graduation.  I didn't really have the tools to figure it out.

Nevertheless, they'd had me where they wanted me for some time, ever since I'd broken ranks and been yoked with the burden of keeping my father out of jail (for molesting me) and maintaining the family sanctity (at great cost to me.)

These people abused me in every way that a person can abuse another.
Worse, they made me believe that the abuse they heaped on me was my fault, and that I was deserving of it, They made me believe that my life would be worthless if I ever left them and eventually from the man they picked for me to marry.  (And when he abused me, it was my fault, too.)
They broke me down to the basest of levels and then pushed me further still into the muck when I tried to get out.

And I was terrified, horrified, absolutely pants-shitting scared to 'lose' them.

Getting away from my family of origin was like dying in inches.  It felt like I was ripping my heart to shreds on a daily basis.  It hurt like motherfucking hell.  But I did it.

Even though I was so convinced that I was unlovable, I did it.
Even though I believed that I would end up completely alone - for awhile I believed that DH (who is my second husband, for clarity's sake,) would leave me because it was so chaotic and nightmarish in my world- I did it.  (Please note, I found out later that he'd contemplated leaving me because of them, and stayed because I left them.)
Even though I was tearing apart every road I'd ever walked without yet having built any new ones, I did it.

And guess what?
I did feel lonely for awhile.  I'd gotten rid of or given up on everything that I'd ever thought I'd known.

There were no more phone calls (usually letting me know what next obligation I'd be fulfilling for them, but still, it was weird that the phone stopped ringing.)  No one showed up unannounced to borrow my vehicle and bring it back with less fuel in it than they'd taken it with.  No one needed me to run interference for them with someone in the real world anymore.  No one demanded that I drop whatever menial thing I was doing, like, oh, working, in order to take care of whatever that day's problem was.  No one randomly decided to pick my kids up or drop my kids off early or late from the agreed time.

And for awhile, the void left by these shitty contacts and violations felt like just that, a void.
It's like any other type of recovery; there's a period of time after we've taken the 'substance' out, be that alcohol or candy or drugs or abusive relationships, and it's gone.  But what's left is a gaping hole in our soul that the wind sort of just whistles through for awhile.  Eventually, we find something else - something new!  healthy! better! shiny! - to fill it up again.  But for awhile, we're just empty and hurting and feeling very alone.

And that, friends, that sucks ass.

But...
It gets better.  It really does.  Here's how it worked for me.

After the looming, evil, all-encompassing presence of the NFOO was no longer front and center in my life, I could see more of the landscape - both within and around me.  I started to discover something I wouldn't have expected.
I had hidden talents and interests that my time of indentured servitude to the NFOO hadn't allowed me the energy for.  I began, slowly, tentatively to explore those.  I started writing again.  I started cooking new things for special occasions; things that I'd always wanted to try but that hadn't been on the prescribed menu when I'd packed up my entire kitchen to go to the N's house to prepare meals for holidays previously.  (Really, that happened five years in a row.  No shit.)  I got sober, something that never would have been allowed with the N's in my life.

Eventually, I started to feel something more than sadness or anger.  I started connecting with the people around me - DH, the DD's, coworkers, long absent friends - again.  I was raw and probably talked to all of these people WAY too much about that, but most of them stuck around - weird, like they liked me or something! - anyway.  I started caring for myself: mentally, emotionally, physically.

Most days now, I am as happy and often happier, as I could possibly be.  I have a life.  I have my soul back in my possession; a little bruised and battered and I think there are some claw marks that will always be evident, but it's mine, and that's worth the world.

I have friends and I have fun and I have hope and I have joy and I have love in my life every single day.

I am not lonely, though I sometimes do feel alone.  But do you know what?  Alone isn't always a bad thing.  Alone is so much better that having belonged to a group of people whose 'care' for me was contingent upon my constant and repeated sacrifice of myself.

What was I afraid to 'lose' again?

Love,
Vanci

UPDATE and a PS:
I'm pretty sure that a post over at Ms. Door Mat's blog got me thinking about this.  Credit where it's due and all... Love, Vanci

Perfect Vision

We have a seasonal creek on our property that's fed primarily by snowmelt.  When the water's found a happy medium between torrential and trickling, I like to watch it; the calm flow of snow melt filtered through mountain rocks has a luminescent quality.  The cold pools magnify and enchance the smooth pebbles on the stream bed to the point that every striation, ever color in the rocks can be seen.  The light that filters through the creekside birch and cedar trees to reflect off the mirror surfaces has that special soft glow that I associate with ocean horizons at sunrise. 

The clear, pure water - for that brief window of time between the rock jumping currents and the dry mossy bed - provides a perfect lens.  I like that.

I've spent so much of my life struggling for clarity.  Trying to understand.  Wanting to be what I thought I was supposed to.  I used to wonder if there was an instruction manual that somebody forgot to give me.  Everybody around me - mostly Narcs - seemed to have a better idea, better direction than I did.  Conditioned from the start to mistrust my own self and judgment, to concede always to others' obviously far superior intellect, experience, wants, wills, I felt... Lost.  Ashamed.  Small.  Unworthy.  Unlovable.  Dirty.  Gross.  Ugly.  Repellant.

So I did what they wanted me to, what they demanded.  In my desperation to be something to somebody, I tolerated abuse on all fronts and gave little pieces of myself away as cheap party favors.  I sacrificed my time, my financial security, my outside relationships, my stability, my sanity to the ever changing demands that NM, EF and eventually OS and YB made of me.  By the end, I'd gotten so good at meeting their needs that they barely had to ask me to at all.  I intuitively knew that it was my job to fix NM's addictions, hide EF's abuse, cover for OS's rage, support YB's failures by pretending they were successes.  No one can live in truth while bearing the responsibility for so many others' illnesses, especially when the Narc's reaction to a Scapegoat's job well done is to point out the flaws and demand more attention to detail next time...which is of course right  around the corner.

Eventually I broke, and then I started learning how to break the cycle.  But I was so confused a lot of the time, because I just hadn't ever had the opportunity to learn how to be anything other than what they'd made me.  It took a lot of stop and starts to gain any traction, and it's been a journey of exhausting introspection.

Now, though, I feel like I can see myself through that crystal clear stream.  I'm a pebble on the river bed, and all my colors shine bright and proud for the entire world to see.  I'm beautiful, kind, and strong as a rock, baby. 

Clarity feels like such a gift.  I spent so long in the muddied up eddys before, boy is it nice to see me, be me and feel absolutely okay with me.

Who'd have thunk it?
Love,
Vanci