Many Mothers

A while back I caught a repeat episode of “This American Life” on NPR called “Babysitting.  It was the end story “Yes there really is a baby” that really caught me.  I just felt like sharing the link to the episode here since you can still listen to it (it will only play the full episode though) here.  While it wasn’t really triggering to me it was really intense.  I have heard so many mother stories that feel just like that one and I think there are some similar feeling there with my own mother story…and I’m sure my mom would hear hear feelings with her mom in that story.

Sabatoging your sanctuary

*looks around innocently, whistling*

I don’t do thaaat, not meeee…

Yeah, it’s my stumbling block in creating a sanctuary for myself.

I actually like things neat and organized, I really do!  However, I have this attachment to clutter as being safe.

I didn’t recognize this until I went away to school and someone pointed out that I slept with a hell of a lot of stuff on my bed!  I took a moment to think about why that was and the immediate answer I got back from myself was “That’s what’s safe.”

I thought about the clutter.  I thought about a memory of being a kid and creating purposeful piles of clutter on my floor as a sort of booby trap.  I would be able to tell if someone had been in my room, going through my stuff, and certainly no one would be able to bother me in my bed.

So I struggle.  I get it all cleaned up, then I get triggered and the place goes to hell.  I’m struggling to clean it up again right now because I really let it go for a while.  I’m pretty sick of it.  When I’m in my own space it’s usually not as bad as this is now because now it’s hard to convince myself that it’s pretty safe here now.  So hopefully this Fall I’ll be able to have my own space again and I’ll just keep chipping away at the sanctuary thing.

Ok I’m finally getting around to doing this (or starting it at least, I might save this as a draft and come back to it later or something).  It’s just I really don’t want to…I don’t know I guess a part of me does want to …it’s all mixed up right now.  So why the hell bother? Well I have all these links and on occasion I torture myself with them.  Why the hell torture anyone else with them then? Well, they actually helped me a lot.  Before anyone shared these links and the terms with me I didn’t think it was any big deal what went on.  It’s always affected me but I just always thought  a.) that’s how things are b.) it’s no big thing I’m blowing it out of proportion, get over it.  I didn’t know those things qualified as abuse, I just knew I didn’t like it and couldn’t seem to make it stop.  I’m still struggling with these things and I struggle to stand up for myself because even now my protests fall on deaf ears.  Now that I know what it is, that all those things qualify it as a big deal, I have some better idea of things I can do to help myself a little more.  I’m better able to tell someone I feel safe with that, hey this is going on this is what I’ve had to deal with and I need help.  It’s not easy, it’s really easy for me to slip into denial again so that’s why I sometimes torture myself reading info.  At some point I hope I can just open my mouth and say IT REALLY DID HAPPEN and IT WAS WRONG.  So if anyone stumbles across this with the same kinds of questions, feelings, thoughts that I had or isn’t even really aware of everything they might have experienced and it helps them sort things out … 🙂

So this is all about covert abuse.  So for me it was both emotional and sexual covert abuse.

Emotionally I experienced two different types of situations, one was “regular” ol’ covert emotional abuse and the other was emotional incest.  The regular ol’ covert emotional abuse was like walking on egg shells all the time, never knew when the rug was gonna be pulled out from under you.  Ok, well I had a good link but it’s written by someone I do not care to link to anymore as he has NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).  I think I have him linked in a previous post but not that particular article…anyway if you do a search on covert emotional abuse you’ll see the Suite101 link there.  This link is on passive aggressive behavior as abuse the post I did on NPD probably has examples of other types of covert abuse too.  The link on passive aggressive stuff though points out a lot of stuff that happened in my situation, purposely forgetting my birthday, blaming and taking out anger on me for things that are obviously not my fault, the dependency thing (I’m to be at beck and call and only when called, forget if I need or want something. Things blow up quickly though because of the denial of dependency like it says), that person taking on the victim role.  This link has a few more it’s about spousal/partner abuse but lots of these still fit!  I was definitely the after thought, my brother came first (though I’m sure he was often an after thought as well to something else). I was bottom of the totem pole (was I even on the totem pole 😛 ).  Questioning abilities is a good on that list too, I was raise to believe all that good crap most kids are taught (your smart, capable, can do anything) but, at any given time that could all be pulled out from under me.

Covert incest or emotional incest is when this is when someone uses you as the resting place/super-glue/ fixer upper to all their emotional baggage. I was taking the place of another adult, I was forced into being the confidant and expected to somehow make it all better.  Lots of times this happens with a child an parent of the opposite sex (I can say this would probably be my ex best friends case with her dad) but it can also happen with a child and parent of the same sex (just realized probably could substitute any grown up for parent, children should just not be place in that role).  This article was the first one I read, a friend shared it on her blog.  I could hardly finish it, I think I cried for quiet awhile because there it was exactly what I could never seem to put into words for myself.  Here is the Wikipedia article on covert incest I disagree with the bottom part on criticisms (skip that if you already know your reaction to the False Memory Foundation). *Strangle* It’s not made up, it had divided us long before I knew there was an actual term for it, and for me the term is fitting (sometimes I use the term emotional rape though) having been through both (incest & rape, emotional and the physical acts). I have not gone through all of this link but it looks really cool, it’s CovertIncest.org it gives some good info from what I can tell at a brief glance and has a link to a support forum (haven’t looked at it yet). I am realizing how much I really do need to get out of the situation I am in as quickly as possible and this link seems to support that idea.  I know I need some definite help with this.

The last link and the Wikipedia article both go on to talk about covert sexual abuse.  This is hard to talk about, it’s done in such a way that your left feeling so mixed up.  What is it? Is it really abusive? Maybe it’s not that bad? Maybe it’s even normal (like the end of the Wikipedia article where it cites the FMF)? No, we all have the right to our boundaries, our feelings, etc.  These were crossed and abused in my life, this **Trigger warning if you open the article** Ezine article goes into detail and gives examples *** of what covert sexual abuse is.  This blog covers a few more examples and I really like what the author had to say about how it affected her and how she is trying to heal.  I know in my family this is what happened in my parent’s childhood home and that parent has just continued/modeled those behaviors (even though this parent, given their professional field, really should know better.  Can’t practice what they preach sort of thing). Seems to be common for a lot of people I talk to about it.  Anyway…

It’s hard when it’s family and when you don’t know what to call it but know it makes you feel really horrible.  Emotions get so mixed up around family for me but mostly right now I’m thinking I need to be as far as possible from them.  I think the relationship was a lot better when I was further away (living just a few miles away wasn’t enough)but, that’s just my personal situation.  It’s scary to think how cyclical this all has been but, I know for me and my part in the cycle it ends.  I see it, I see what it’s doing, I see what it has done and I don’t want it to continue with me.  There is a lot of stuff for me to work though. It is kind of nice to feel like maybe there are answers and solutions to some of my thoughts about life and behaviors.  Some days I get really down about my life and go into the awful mode of making comparisons to others lives or the “norm”.  One day at a time though, can’t get ahead of myself too much.  This week I’m working on making a call that will hopefully end up really helpful in all of this.  Trying to stay positive about this whole situation I’m in at the moment, anyway.