I adore some of the people who make up the family that I married into. Others I try to find ways to understand and, lacking that, I meditate on words like: compassion. Kindness. Tolerance. Acceptance.
I haven't written about them here much because this is the place that I write about how I was abused by my family of origin and my struggles to overcome that particular Homer-esque Epic of Trauma. Simply put, my in-laws haven't been abusive to me; in fact my SIL and BIL have never been anything but supportive of me. They're some of the people in my life who stood by me through thick and thin - even when they hadn't a clue what was causing my pain or what the holy hell was going on, they picked up the phone and they listened and talked and expressed to me six different ways from Sunday that they loved me. They were proud of me. They had my back, baby.
DH and I have traveled many roads together, some of the uphill all the way until you get to the washed out bridge variety and some that have been delightful scenic routes to beautiful places. He's taught me how to allow myself to be loved in the skin that I'm in in so many different ways, and I've shown him how to crack open the shell of fear that he sometimes retreats to in order to let the sunshine in.
I've never particularly understood my mother- and father-in-law, but I've cared for them and they've cared for me in their own (extremely private) way. We have very, very little in common as far as our beliefs, our life experiences, how we choose to spend our time, what we enjoy. We eat differently and at different times. I like spices and fresh produce and food that has unique flavor. They put ketchup on tacos and mayonnaise on... well, everything else. They enjoy being 'country.' I decidedly do not, to the point that I've been known to ask people who refer to a creek as a crick to show me, damn it, show me where that pronunciation exists in a dictionary. They're crazy cat people (seriously, six cats is a ridiculous number of cats to have,) and I am firmly a one-dog person. You get the picture.
We've found our vibe of co-existence over the years, though, and it's been mostly comfortable for me.
After all, with my background of family=abuse and mother/father/sister/brother=psychopaths, the in-laws have seemed largely normal to me.
Except for this thing, this giant elephant that stuck its trunk inquisitively into my living room a few years ago and has been slowly inching its mass further and further into the spotlight sense then...
My mother-in-law lies. If I detailed it all, we'd be here all night, but here's a breakdown of some of the more egregious offenses:
She decided I was Mormon before DH and I got married. Twelve years later, I still have no idea how she manufactured this; I had two children and was divorced, had lived out of wedlock with her son for almost two years, smoked like a chimney, swore like a sailor and drank like a fish, claimed zero religious affiliation though my father was a Southern Baptist minister (very much NOT Mormon, possibly even ANTI-Mormon as So. Baptists are pretty much ANTI-anything that's not So. Baptist,) and my wedding dress - which she'd seen - barely, just barely covered my ass. During one particularly energetic dance, it actually didn't cover my ass. I, however, was drunk enough not to care. The centerpiece of our wedding reception was a fully stocked champagne fountain. We got married in our backyard and went to Vegas for our honeymoon. Really, I would have been the worst Mormon ever. Ever.
But instead of being forthright, instead of actually asking, instead of developing a relationship, she - without ever asking either DH or myself - decided that I was Mormon (a bad thing in their family,) and called all of the extended relatives to tell them this.
I remember thinking, "Oh... kay."
DH was furious, but I let it go because, hey, I loved the guy. He loved me. I had enough issues with my own mother, right?
There have been lots of other "Oh... kay" moments over the years. Stories that didn't add up the first time she told them, much less as they morphed over time in the (repeated) re-tellings. Alleged facts of her or other people's live that are thrown out in conversation as attention getting tactics, but don't really add up. (She barely graduated high school while preggers with my DH, and has never worked outside of her home other than to volunteer at the seriously bass-ackwards and ineffectual "christian" school that she forced her children to attend, is barely literate and has never pursued academic or intellectual enrichment, yet she has begun claiming that she, "retired from teaching.") Oh... kay.
When my FIL had a major and debilitating stroke, they both insisted for years that it had just been a 'baby stroke.' No matter how many times I showed them and told them that by definition a 'mini-stroke' or TIA is a stroke that causes no long term effects, they insisted that FIL hadn't had a major stroke. Even when the man had to attend physical therapy to learn how to use his non-dominant left hand to write with and to pick up such tricks as how to sit on his right hand to control the involuntary muscle movements enough to not backhand the person sitting next to him, they still insisted that he'd only had a 'little stroke.' Oh... kay.
She claimed that the water test she had done on our well when we moved into this house was fine and clear of bacteria, yet after our disastrous incident with our well poisoning, when we got our fifth water test back showing that the contamination had returned... again, I asked her to show me a copy of that initial water test. I wish I could say that I was shocked when I saw that it said, right there in black and white, that our well water was contaminated (and therefore we had been drinking contaminated water for four fucking years,) but I really wasn't all that shocked.
What did shock me was the height of the wall of denial that she was willing to stand behind in order to be proven right. Her response? "I don't know what to tell you. The water's always been fine for us!" Oh... kay.
So, in the last week, we've all been dealing with some illness on my father-in-law's part. He's had medical issues that have gone largely untreated by the non-involved and apathetic doctors that they insist on seeing (cause that's always been fine for us!) and he had another event last week.
I was the first person to say the word (stroke! stroke! stroke! stroke! STROKE goddamnit!) this time just like I was the first person to say it out loud the first time he was in the hospital for that alleged 'minor event' that wiped out all functionality on one side of his body. And it got me thinking.
I grew up in this vortex of illusion and deceit wherein it was dictated that as long as we didn't name the Big Bad Thing, as long as no one found out about the Big Bad Thing, as long as we didn't acknowledge the Big Bad Thing, then either the Big Bad Thing didn't really exist or the Big Bad Thing was really just an Honest Mistake. I distinctly remember my molesting ENF teaching the girl scout class on how a girl should tell, tell, tell a trusted adult if another adult touched her 'private parts.' So, yeah, start with two parts abuse, add one part crazy and a dash or denial of reality, let cook for 30 years then watch the ACON dry out and run screaming for dear life from the NFOO Crazymaker Clan jello mold. (Then watch the NFOO blame the Scapegoat ACON for all of it in the first place.)
My only way out of that hell was to get honest, real honest, and how.
And I learned that naming the Big Bad Thing and shouting about the Big Bad Thing from rooftops was not only the way to take away its power, but also to cleanse it, to remove the shame and fear and humiliation and fear from it and reduce it from the (Powerful) Big Bad (Secretive) Thing to the thing we're going to deal with. To make it a part of life, and maybe not the most comfortable part of life, but a part of life that can be dealt with, categorized, taken care of, moved on from and possibly even prevented from reappearing in the future.
So now, the past, present and future medical issues of my FIL are coming out into the open. Something will have to be done. Something will have to be named. Confronted. Taken care of. Dealt with.
And my MIL and FIL are so, so, so, so terrified of that, so frozen in the clutches of denial, struggling so hard to not see it for what it is, so willing to lie to themselves and everyone around them in order to deny the existence of the problem that they are risking my FIL's life in order to do so by not seeking immediate testing, diagnosis, treatment, solutions. I'm super proud of my DH and SIL for spearheading this drive to name the darkness, though they're scared as fuck, too. They're choosing not to hide from it or to make up stories to deflect reality or hide behind denial like they were taught to do, and I couldn't be happier for them.
Still. Sigh.
What a cluster fuck.
This blog is about my deciding to carry the rocks that have my name on them. I'm in the middle of the process of determining which rocks in this pile are mine to carry and of deciding which grindstone to throw the considerable weight of my support and will to. It's going to take a lot of strength and thought.
It's going to take a lot of honesty.
I guess I'll just spend some time thanking my allegedly Mormon gawd that I've got honesty in spades.
Love,
Vanci
Showing posts with label honesty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label honesty. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Contagious Blindness
I'm open about my struggles to the degree that it's appropriate in my everyday life. I don't go around with a giant black A for abused or a scarlet S for scapegoat stitched onto my chest, but when people ask, I tell the truth. When people tell me about their challenges and struggles in dealing with family issues, spousal issues, parenting issues, I try to engage in honest dialogue that reflects my truthful experience.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, having been raised in the vortex of deception that my narcissistic Crazymaker parents created, and having removed myself from that particular cesspool, I value truth above all else. I want to live authentically, and I practice the principle of authenticity on a daily basis. When I screw up, I admit it. When I do well, I allow myself to be proud and to take credit. When I'm asked what I think... I say what I think. This particular trait seems to be rather rare in our world and societies, at least in all the circles that I'm familiar with. I'm not trying to be unique, I'm just trying to stay sane and I wholeheartedly subscribe to the maxim that we are as sick as our number and depth of secrets. So, I tell the truth.
Second, telling the truth helps me to keep my stories straight. I've said before - the truth doesn't have versions, it just is. Honesty, therefore, is a link to reality for me. I've found that if I am not consistently honest about what I've been through, what they did to me, how it affected me and how I'm coping, I will quickly become confused. I don't think I'm alone in this, but I'm pretty sure that this concept is difficult for anyone who wasn't raised with Narcs to understand. You see, I was indoctrinated from all sides from an early age on with the idea that the Narcs had the power to change facts, history, dates, times, events and actual true accounts of reality by simply saying it wasn't so. When they decided that the painful truths of the past or present were just not meshing with the pictures of themselves that they wanted to display on the mantle, they simply changed those truths. They made them into bastardized versions of the truth. And their versions of the truth - subject to further revision at any given time - became the New Truth!
There were (and are still, I'm sure) so many instances of this revisionism, gaslighting, stonewalling and outright lying in my life with the NFOO that it truly becomes difficult to know what the truth really is. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack... that's piled on the back of a truck... going 70 mph down the highway... in the dark... which someone constantly removing parts of the pile and someone else constantly adding more hay to the top. Bad metaphor, I know, but, hey it's the truth. So, when I find the needle of truth in that mess, I hold onto it dearly. Because truth, reality, what really happened is so very important to me. They really can't change the truth, you know, no matter how hard they try. It just is.
But, inability to change the truth won't stop them from trying. Furthermore, it won't stop them from trying to cover it up, either. They're basically professional level liars and manipulators, and they haven't gotten away with it for their entire lives by doing it poorly. They have a system, they cover each other, it works. Unsuspecting non-Narcs who come into contact with them are easily rubed. How could they not be? The Crazymakers have justifications, rationalizations, revisions of history, explanations and misdirection on their side. EF, family lore goes, could have sold icicles to Eskimos.
Jonsi asked in the coments of my Invisibility and Dark Shadows post:
"I wonder Vanci...did anyone you ever met growing up or in your young-adulthood ever tell you that they thought your family behaved strangely or that they were abusive?"
Oh my, Jonsi! What a normal, normal question to ask! This made me laugh out loud, not at the question, certainly, but because it would have been so ludicrous if this had happened. Here's the why:
They moved us around every year for a reason. It's entirely possible to maintain a perfectly perfect projection of a facade of perfectness... for a short period of time. I don't know how much of the grand master plan of physical isolation was completely conscious on the part of NM and EF and how much was below surface, but I'm absolutely positive that they knew at some level that if we stayed anywhere too long, people would get close. And when 'outsiders' get close to a family as fucked up as ours was, they see through the veneer. Most 'normal' people, granted, would turn a blind eye (and of the few who did get close to us in one way or another, the great majority did just that,) but those who got close enough to see some of the truth behind the castle gates and might have done anything about it had very little time to act or react. They usually only began to suspect, it seems, as we were loading up the moving vans.
Even when physical isolation wasn't possible, the Crazymakers created an airtight shelter of emotional isolation. Here's a small sample.
When I was about 11 years old, I began to gain some serious weight. I know now that this was partly a subconscious attempt to make myself unattractive; having been sexually abused wreaks havoc on a girl's self image, particularly as she enters into puberty. I'd imagine I was doing some hormonally driven emotional eating too. With the small amount of safety that my newly unattractive body gave me, I started to open up a bit. I had a couple of close-ish girlfriends for the first time in my young life. I started writing. I had a teacher who took an interest in helping me into 'gifted' classes.
I started to get comfortable with myself. Oops.
I expressed my desire to slim down to NM. She put me on 'slimfast.' No kidding. Almost 12 years old, going through puberty, gaining weight to hide shame, and she put me on a fad diet that A) doesn't really work and B) truly isn't healthy for anybody, really, but especially for a growing girl. So, I became hungry, shamed by my hunger, sick to my stomach and generally ill at ease. Oddly (unless you grew up with Narcs like this,) we ate dinner out in restaurants more during this six month period than any other time that I can remember in my life with the NFOO. And at every single dinner, when the waitress would get around to asking me what I wanted, EF would say, loudly, in his best preacher-man voice, "Oh, she can't have anything! She's on Slimfast!" And then NM would say to him, "EF, don't say that! You know Vanci's sensitive about her weight/dieting!" I would get upset, of course, and my cheeks turn red when I'm ashamed. I was a glowing beacon of chubby shame sitting at a booth in public place.
So, NM would pat my hand and say, always within ear-shot of the waitiress (audience,) "Oh, don't be upset, it's not your fault, Vanci. It's my genes, you know, and so my fault that you tend toward chubby. I've had to work so hard all my life to keep the weight off..."
Unless you grew up with this, unless you've had this happen to you, well, at worst to an observer it just seems weird or it seems like these are parents who don't have a firm grasp on the finer etiquette points of social conversation. At best it appears to be the dialogue of two parents who are lovingly trying to help their overweight daughter to be healthier or fit into society better. No one thinks, "Oh, that nicely dressed married couple over there with the big smiles and the promise of a nice tip are trying to cover up that they routinely torture and humiliate at least one of their children."
They are just so damned good at the show of it all. They have layers and layers of nice painted on the outside; so many that it's really impossible to tell where one lie starts and another begins. They just seem like such nice people. There's a comment I've heard often, and it's totally true! They do seem like nice people, because they act like nice people, and they're good at this charade, because the maintenance of this farce is absolutely critical to the maintenance of the style of living and life they want to have. If they seemed rotten, they'd never be able to get away with it - if they acted on the outside like the monsters that they truly are, CPS would have taken all three of us kids away pronto.
So, unfortunately, no, dear Jonsi, no one ever said those things to me. Most outsiders weren't allowed to be close enough to see beyond the masks. Those few who did make it through weren't allowed access for very long. Of those who did glimpse the reality of the NFOO, most were treated immediately and intensely to the blindingly convincing show of Narc-y Nice Nice. I don't know of any outsider who ever infiltrated to the core, honestly.
And this is the last piece of this answer, and the reason for this post's title. They lied so well that 99% of people believed the lies. Further, they created a lose-lose for me: tell the truth and we'll destroy you, go along with the lie and we'll leave you alone, sometimes. But mostly, and this is the sad part for me, they held so much of my self-worth in their palms, that even when I was the subject of the abuse, I was willing to lie along with them to cover up their 'sins.' After all, even if I didn't believe it was totally my fault, did I really want to create a situation that would leave our family homeless? Take away EF's livelihood? Destroy my mother? Hurt my sister? Devastate my brother? So I drank the kool-aid, you know?
And then, I grew up. I had lots and lots of 'friends' and acquaintances, too, but they didn't really know me. How could they? I learned inauthenticity over my baby food jars. I, too, as the child of manipulative narcissists, can make you believe anything I want you to, should I choose. And with all those friends and acquaintances, I chose to make them believe that I was fine, just fine, can't you see how fine I am. This repression of my pain, primarily, is what led me to the bottle... the release of this repression is what started me down the road to healing.
I don't think that the outsiders we came into contact with were neccesarily stupid, though. I think they just fell victim to the sway of the Narcs, who are very good at their brand of hypnosis. At least that's what I'd like to believe; I really want to think that if there had been any adult in my life long enough to see the reality of my childhood, they'd have spoken up. I'd like to believe that if I'd been capable of being authentic with any of my friends or acquaintances in young adulthood, they would have seen the reality of the situation and come to my aid. I'd like, honestly, to believe that people are generally good at a core level.
And so, that's what I am - honest and authentic and very, very open. I hope beyond hope that my openess, my authenticity, my 100% real and true story can help someone else. And I keep my eyes peeled and my tongue at the ready because I want to be sure that I can be that voice to someone else if the opportunity arises. I want to be able to say (and I have in the past and it's helped others,) "Listen to me, please. You have a right to be treated with decency; you have a right to be treated with respect; above all, in all circumstances, you have an absolute right to defend yourself and an absolute right to safety."
Does it make a difference? To others - I hope so. To me? It makes all the difference.
Love,
Vanci
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, having been raised in the vortex of deception that my narcissistic Crazymaker parents created, and having removed myself from that particular cesspool, I value truth above all else. I want to live authentically, and I practice the principle of authenticity on a daily basis. When I screw up, I admit it. When I do well, I allow myself to be proud and to take credit. When I'm asked what I think... I say what I think. This particular trait seems to be rather rare in our world and societies, at least in all the circles that I'm familiar with. I'm not trying to be unique, I'm just trying to stay sane and I wholeheartedly subscribe to the maxim that we are as sick as our number and depth of secrets. So, I tell the truth.
Second, telling the truth helps me to keep my stories straight. I've said before - the truth doesn't have versions, it just is. Honesty, therefore, is a link to reality for me. I've found that if I am not consistently honest about what I've been through, what they did to me, how it affected me and how I'm coping, I will quickly become confused. I don't think I'm alone in this, but I'm pretty sure that this concept is difficult for anyone who wasn't raised with Narcs to understand. You see, I was indoctrinated from all sides from an early age on with the idea that the Narcs had the power to change facts, history, dates, times, events and actual true accounts of reality by simply saying it wasn't so. When they decided that the painful truths of the past or present were just not meshing with the pictures of themselves that they wanted to display on the mantle, they simply changed those truths. They made them into bastardized versions of the truth. And their versions of the truth - subject to further revision at any given time - became the New Truth!
There were (and are still, I'm sure) so many instances of this revisionism, gaslighting, stonewalling and outright lying in my life with the NFOO that it truly becomes difficult to know what the truth really is. It's like trying to find a needle in a haystack... that's piled on the back of a truck... going 70 mph down the highway... in the dark... which someone constantly removing parts of the pile and someone else constantly adding more hay to the top. Bad metaphor, I know, but, hey it's the truth. So, when I find the needle of truth in that mess, I hold onto it dearly. Because truth, reality, what really happened is so very important to me. They really can't change the truth, you know, no matter how hard they try. It just is.
But, inability to change the truth won't stop them from trying. Furthermore, it won't stop them from trying to cover it up, either. They're basically professional level liars and manipulators, and they haven't gotten away with it for their entire lives by doing it poorly. They have a system, they cover each other, it works. Unsuspecting non-Narcs who come into contact with them are easily rubed. How could they not be? The Crazymakers have justifications, rationalizations, revisions of history, explanations and misdirection on their side. EF, family lore goes, could have sold icicles to Eskimos.
Jonsi asked in the coments of my Invisibility and Dark Shadows post:
"I wonder Vanci...did anyone you ever met growing up or in your young-adulthood ever tell you that they thought your family behaved strangely or that they were abusive?"
Oh my, Jonsi! What a normal, normal question to ask! This made me laugh out loud, not at the question, certainly, but because it would have been so ludicrous if this had happened. Here's the why:
They moved us around every year for a reason. It's entirely possible to maintain a perfectly perfect projection of a facade of perfectness... for a short period of time. I don't know how much of the grand master plan of physical isolation was completely conscious on the part of NM and EF and how much was below surface, but I'm absolutely positive that they knew at some level that if we stayed anywhere too long, people would get close. And when 'outsiders' get close to a family as fucked up as ours was, they see through the veneer. Most 'normal' people, granted, would turn a blind eye (and of the few who did get close to us in one way or another, the great majority did just that,) but those who got close enough to see some of the truth behind the castle gates and might have done anything about it had very little time to act or react. They usually only began to suspect, it seems, as we were loading up the moving vans.
Even when physical isolation wasn't possible, the Crazymakers created an airtight shelter of emotional isolation. Here's a small sample.
When I was about 11 years old, I began to gain some serious weight. I know now that this was partly a subconscious attempt to make myself unattractive; having been sexually abused wreaks havoc on a girl's self image, particularly as she enters into puberty. I'd imagine I was doing some hormonally driven emotional eating too. With the small amount of safety that my newly unattractive body gave me, I started to open up a bit. I had a couple of close-ish girlfriends for the first time in my young life. I started writing. I had a teacher who took an interest in helping me into 'gifted' classes.
I started to get comfortable with myself. Oops.
I expressed my desire to slim down to NM. She put me on 'slimfast.' No kidding. Almost 12 years old, going through puberty, gaining weight to hide shame, and she put me on a fad diet that A) doesn't really work and B) truly isn't healthy for anybody, really, but especially for a growing girl. So, I became hungry, shamed by my hunger, sick to my stomach and generally ill at ease. Oddly (unless you grew up with Narcs like this,) we ate dinner out in restaurants more during this six month period than any other time that I can remember in my life with the NFOO. And at every single dinner, when the waitress would get around to asking me what I wanted, EF would say, loudly, in his best preacher-man voice, "Oh, she can't have anything! She's on Slimfast!" And then NM would say to him, "EF, don't say that! You know Vanci's sensitive about her weight/dieting!" I would get upset, of course, and my cheeks turn red when I'm ashamed. I was a glowing beacon of chubby shame sitting at a booth in public place.
So, NM would pat my hand and say, always within ear-shot of the waitiress (audience,) "Oh, don't be upset, it's not your fault, Vanci. It's my genes, you know, and so my fault that you tend toward chubby. I've had to work so hard all my life to keep the weight off..."
Unless you grew up with this, unless you've had this happen to you, well, at worst to an observer it just seems weird or it seems like these are parents who don't have a firm grasp on the finer etiquette points of social conversation. At best it appears to be the dialogue of two parents who are lovingly trying to help their overweight daughter to be healthier or fit into society better. No one thinks, "Oh, that nicely dressed married couple over there with the big smiles and the promise of a nice tip are trying to cover up that they routinely torture and humiliate at least one of their children."
They are just so damned good at the show of it all. They have layers and layers of nice painted on the outside; so many that it's really impossible to tell where one lie starts and another begins. They just seem like such nice people. There's a comment I've heard often, and it's totally true! They do seem like nice people, because they act like nice people, and they're good at this charade, because the maintenance of this farce is absolutely critical to the maintenance of the style of living and life they want to have. If they seemed rotten, they'd never be able to get away with it - if they acted on the outside like the monsters that they truly are, CPS would have taken all three of us kids away pronto.
So, unfortunately, no, dear Jonsi, no one ever said those things to me. Most outsiders weren't allowed to be close enough to see beyond the masks. Those few who did make it through weren't allowed access for very long. Of those who did glimpse the reality of the NFOO, most were treated immediately and intensely to the blindingly convincing show of Narc-y Nice Nice. I don't know of any outsider who ever infiltrated to the core, honestly.
And this is the last piece of this answer, and the reason for this post's title. They lied so well that 99% of people believed the lies. Further, they created a lose-lose for me: tell the truth and we'll destroy you, go along with the lie and we'll leave you alone, sometimes. But mostly, and this is the sad part for me, they held so much of my self-worth in their palms, that even when I was the subject of the abuse, I was willing to lie along with them to cover up their 'sins.' After all, even if I didn't believe it was totally my fault, did I really want to create a situation that would leave our family homeless? Take away EF's livelihood? Destroy my mother? Hurt my sister? Devastate my brother? So I drank the kool-aid, you know?
And then, I grew up. I had lots and lots of 'friends' and acquaintances, too, but they didn't really know me. How could they? I learned inauthenticity over my baby food jars. I, too, as the child of manipulative narcissists, can make you believe anything I want you to, should I choose. And with all those friends and acquaintances, I chose to make them believe that I was fine, just fine, can't you see how fine I am. This repression of my pain, primarily, is what led me to the bottle... the release of this repression is what started me down the road to healing.
I don't think that the outsiders we came into contact with were neccesarily stupid, though. I think they just fell victim to the sway of the Narcs, who are very good at their brand of hypnosis. At least that's what I'd like to believe; I really want to think that if there had been any adult in my life long enough to see the reality of my childhood, they'd have spoken up. I'd like to believe that if I'd been capable of being authentic with any of my friends or acquaintances in young adulthood, they would have seen the reality of the situation and come to my aid. I'd like, honestly, to believe that people are generally good at a core level.
And so, that's what I am - honest and authentic and very, very open. I hope beyond hope that my openess, my authenticity, my 100% real and true story can help someone else. And I keep my eyes peeled and my tongue at the ready because I want to be sure that I can be that voice to someone else if the opportunity arises. I want to be able to say (and I have in the past and it's helped others,) "Listen to me, please. You have a right to be treated with decency; you have a right to be treated with respect; above all, in all circumstances, you have an absolute right to defend yourself and an absolute right to safety."
Does it make a difference? To others - I hope so. To me? It makes all the difference.
Love,
Vanci
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Tell It Like It Is Girl
That's me. This is a nice compliment that a dear friend paid me recently. "Vanci," she said, "You're the only friend I have that always tells the truth. You are kind, don't get me wrong, but I know I can always count on you to tell it like it is."
Being honest is a character attribute, right? Who doesn't want to be known for their honesty, integrity and sincerity? But, as soon as she said it, I felt a nudge; an old FOO guilt trip the Crazymakers built into me over many, many years got triggered.
Narcs have an unprecedented ability to skew perceptions of reality, in my experience. I'll never forget part of a conversation that I tried to have with NM early on in our seperation. I was only willing to meet with her in counseling at the time, which was absolutely unacceptable to her. She and the giant defensive chip on her shoulder showed up with an agenda; to get me to concede to her version of reality, admit that I was wrong and right everything by returning back to my allotted role in the family. It was a mostly pointless attempt at conversation, but this was one of my huge take-aways: She lies so much that in the end she doesn't know what really happened.
That's not an excuse for her behavior, just the only explanation I can come up with for this. Interestingly, given the smear campaign she was actively spear-heading against me in the community we live in, she brought up in that counseling session that she was 'embarassed' that I 'told people that our family was dysfunctional.' "We're not dysfunctional!" she said over and over, as if by repetition alone such a lie could be made true. Strangely enough, I hadn't actually spoken to anyone outside of The Family about what was happening in The Family at the time, apart from one old 'family friend' who'd approached me at a civic service function.
Ms. Gossipy made it a point to get into the buffet lunch line behind me and quickly dispersed with pleasantries by asking me point blank, "How's your mother?" I was trying to be polite but honest, so I said, "You know, Ms. Gossipy, I really haven't talked to her in a while."
She put on that evil, knowing sneer that seems to be the sole property of Minions and Flying Monkeys and said, "I know what you're doing to your mother, and I'm extremely disappointed in you!"
My reply was quick, "I'm sorry you feel that way and I'm not willing to discuss this with you further."
In counseling with NM, I brought this interaction up as I thought it showed clearly just who was doing the 'talking' about our dirty laundry. I, after all, hadn't said anything to Ms. Gossipy but she'd obviously gotten her information directly from the FOO source. NM's response, "Well, I didn't talk to her!"
I called her out, saying, "NM, of course you talked to her! Who else would?"
"Well," she said, "she called me!"
"But you just said you didn't talk to her?!?"
So far in the conversation, NM's gone from you're being mean to me (saying things about me in the community,) to I didn't do anything (an outright lie,) to it wasn't my fault (Ms. Gossipy initiated contact, which gives me a right to engage.) Next up; blame shifting to me.
"Well," she said, "when Ms. Gossipy called me and I told her what was going on, she said, 'Vanci was always such a hard child for you to raise, I remember what she was like as a teenager!'"
Wow, just wow. Not only was she able to make it true in her mind that I am just bad, since I was a bad teenager (um.... see previous posts regarding sexual abuse and repression by NM of my feelings combined with her unwillingness to create safety for me, etc...) fifteen years previously, but she was also able to make it my fault that she had to talk to someone else in the community about our bad relationship - cause I was just a bad daughter and someone we knew had to call her to find out why.
WTF?
"Why would you say that, Mom?" I asked, deeply hurt by all the insinuation that I was at fault not only for present day issues, but also that my reactionary-to-abuse smoking and drinking and promiscuity fifteen years prior was being dragged back out into the public light as proof of NM's innocence.
"I didn't say it," she said, "I only agreed with her."
"So you agreed with her?" I asked.
"Well you were such a diffi--"
I interrupted. "So you agreed with her and blamed our problems today on my behavior as a teenager?"
Frustrated by my insistence on staying on the topic, she finally sputtered out, "Oh, Vanci! What does it matter?"
I felt a bubble burst inside me. Not relief, exactly, but I had some sense of deep, intuitive understanding that I was NOT like her and I responded with, "What's the truth, mom? The truth is what matters!"
She was silent.
I'm so glad that I have the ability to see and feel and hold onto and recognize and acknowledge and tell the truth.
Every bad relationship in my life has punished me for being honest.
Every good relationship in my life has rewarded me for my honesty.
What an awesome tool to have; what an incredible, simple way to live.
No matter the situation, I always have a starting point; what's the truth? The truth doesn't have versions, it's black and white, it happened or it didn't. What a great litmus test of my own sanity.
I think I'll just keep tellin' it like it is.
Love,
Vanci
Being honest is a character attribute, right? Who doesn't want to be known for their honesty, integrity and sincerity? But, as soon as she said it, I felt a nudge; an old FOO guilt trip the Crazymakers built into me over many, many years got triggered.
Narcs have an unprecedented ability to skew perceptions of reality, in my experience. I'll never forget part of a conversation that I tried to have with NM early on in our seperation. I was only willing to meet with her in counseling at the time, which was absolutely unacceptable to her. She and the giant defensive chip on her shoulder showed up with an agenda; to get me to concede to her version of reality, admit that I was wrong and right everything by returning back to my allotted role in the family. It was a mostly pointless attempt at conversation, but this was one of my huge take-aways: She lies so much that in the end she doesn't know what really happened.
That's not an excuse for her behavior, just the only explanation I can come up with for this. Interestingly, given the smear campaign she was actively spear-heading against me in the community we live in, she brought up in that counseling session that she was 'embarassed' that I 'told people that our family was dysfunctional.' "We're not dysfunctional!" she said over and over, as if by repetition alone such a lie could be made true. Strangely enough, I hadn't actually spoken to anyone outside of The Family about what was happening in The Family at the time, apart from one old 'family friend' who'd approached me at a civic service function.
Ms. Gossipy made it a point to get into the buffet lunch line behind me and quickly dispersed with pleasantries by asking me point blank, "How's your mother?" I was trying to be polite but honest, so I said, "You know, Ms. Gossipy, I really haven't talked to her in a while."
She put on that evil, knowing sneer that seems to be the sole property of Minions and Flying Monkeys and said, "I know what you're doing to your mother, and I'm extremely disappointed in you!"
My reply was quick, "I'm sorry you feel that way and I'm not willing to discuss this with you further."
In counseling with NM, I brought this interaction up as I thought it showed clearly just who was doing the 'talking' about our dirty laundry. I, after all, hadn't said anything to Ms. Gossipy but she'd obviously gotten her information directly from the FOO source. NM's response, "Well, I didn't talk to her!"
I called her out, saying, "NM, of course you talked to her! Who else would?"
"Well," she said, "she called me!"
"But you just said you didn't talk to her?!?"
So far in the conversation, NM's gone from you're being mean to me (saying things about me in the community,) to I didn't do anything (an outright lie,) to it wasn't my fault (Ms. Gossipy initiated contact, which gives me a right to engage.) Next up; blame shifting to me.
"Well," she said, "when Ms. Gossipy called me and I told her what was going on, she said, 'Vanci was always such a hard child for you to raise, I remember what she was like as a teenager!'"
Wow, just wow. Not only was she able to make it true in her mind that I am just bad, since I was a bad teenager (um.... see previous posts regarding sexual abuse and repression by NM of my feelings combined with her unwillingness to create safety for me, etc...) fifteen years previously, but she was also able to make it my fault that she had to talk to someone else in the community about our bad relationship - cause I was just a bad daughter and someone we knew had to call her to find out why.
WTF?
"Why would you say that, Mom?" I asked, deeply hurt by all the insinuation that I was at fault not only for present day issues, but also that my reactionary-to-abuse smoking and drinking and promiscuity fifteen years prior was being dragged back out into the public light as proof of NM's innocence.
"I didn't say it," she said, "I only agreed with her."
"So you agreed with her?" I asked.
"Well you were such a diffi--"
I interrupted. "So you agreed with her and blamed our problems today on my behavior as a teenager?"
Frustrated by my insistence on staying on the topic, she finally sputtered out, "Oh, Vanci! What does it matter?"
I felt a bubble burst inside me. Not relief, exactly, but I had some sense of deep, intuitive understanding that I was NOT like her and I responded with, "What's the truth, mom? The truth is what matters!"
She was silent.
I'm so glad that I have the ability to see and feel and hold onto and recognize and acknowledge and tell the truth.
Every bad relationship in my life has punished me for being honest.
Every good relationship in my life has rewarded me for my honesty.
What an awesome tool to have; what an incredible, simple way to live.
No matter the situation, I always have a starting point; what's the truth? The truth doesn't have versions, it's black and white, it happened or it didn't. What a great litmus test of my own sanity.
I think I'll just keep tellin' it like it is.
Love,
Vanci
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