How about you?

NAP – I agree that most of us had at least one unavailable parent. In my case, it was my dad. He was a class A Sociopath-ran around on my mom they’re entire marriage. They divorced when I was 13 y/o.He would come and pick me up once in a while for church, and afterwards we would meet a couple of his girlfriends for coffee.
I cannot recall any of my childhood prior to divorce-cannot put my mom and dad together as a married couple other than some very bitter fights. One, I remember in particular.
My mom threw a rubbing alcohol bottle at my dad. I was standing in the way and it hit me by mistake. My dad shoved her down when she tried to come in and see how bad I was hurt.
My Dad was Catholic and my mom Methodist. He forced me to be Catholic and would beat me with a belt if I resisted him in any way regarding religion. My mom and grandmother continually fed the fire by teaching me to hate him and Catholicism (With good reason, but not good for a child.)
I can remember my dad coming on the TV as a “wanted man”. Remember when I was young and staying at a hotel with mom and dad-the police broke in with guns. Have no idea what that was about. After the divorce, my dad rarely would seek me out. I always had to go see him at his office, as a Real Estate agent, if I wanted to see him.
My mom was probably a good mom up until the time of divorce. She caught him with another woman. I was asked to testify in court when I would allow my dad to see me. Another really good thing for a child!
After the divorce, my mom had to go to work, and I was responsible to taking care of my sister and cooking dinner after school. Never really had a chance to make friends or participate in school activities.
My mom and grandmother continually threatened me with seeing my dad and grandmother said she would cut me out of the will. (She had money).
Being the independent child I was, I told her to DO IT! After my marriage, my mom did not see me for 10 yrs. because of it.
While raising my sister, she became an alcoholic. Married to her second husband, and I found lots of porn and “swinger magazines” hidden in they’re closet.
My sister came to live with my husband and I. She attended her Jr. and Sr. yr. of highschool with us.
Made up my mind at a very young age that I wasn’t going to be anything like my Dad or mom.
That is basically my shortened story.

jesus h christ, Hardly Ozzie and Harriet, were they?

Here’s a bit (((hug))) for your bravery, Sharron. That takes guts to get that all out there!

I think your folks make “psychodude” look like a paradigm of virtue. Its like they went out of their way to be the worst parents that God ever put on this good earth.

But, actually, have to say that I don’t think your mom was a good mother at any stage of the game. She did not protect you from that monster and that was her JOB and not doing so is NEGLECT and that’s a kind of child abuse too. So, she does not get a free get out of jail pass. And of course, the responsibilities of an adult that were heaped on you, were also inappropriate. No wonder you don’t remember much of your childhood. It sounds like it was hell on earth!

I, unfortunately, remember EVERYTHING, starting at about age 2.5. My story had many similar elements, with a narcissistic abusive father, who obviously ran around and then beatings at the drop of a hat, (which began at age 3) a fight (with mom) with a fork ending up in my head (yes, that explains a thing or two) 😉 I was the youngest and largely ignored and/or took second, third, 10th priority, so I learned to fend for myself, the best I could. My father’s sister used me as a psychological pawn. The bitch passed on years ago– gave all of my grandmother’s things to her daughters as well as the family inheritance which my sister and I have the same relation to the great aunt who passed it on to her, as my first cousins do. c’est la vie. Dad is long gone, and my mom, I’ve had a chance to tell her just how badly she fucked up. Doing nothing is not being a good parent. Nothing is still doing something, just not the RIGHT something. Still, she did have the courage to dump my psycho father at a time and place where that sort of thing was just not done, but she really had no other choice as he was threatening to kill us.

My husband is the diametric opposite of my father, in many ways, but apparently not in others. And predator, I am sure, because of his smoking and drinking, smelled exactly like him. 🙁 it really sucks.

Lexie and b-trayed. It’s funny – growing up for most of us who had dysfunctional families just became the norm. Living like that was just how it was, and for me, when making up my mind to be nothing like my parent’s was what saved me. I remember sitting in the balcony of our Methodist church after choir practice (age 13) and praying for that to happen
Lexie- Your’e story is also so sad, (A fork in the head??) your’e mom should have been arrested! I think both of us came out as very strong women-just messed up in picking the right kind of men.
I am glad your’e husband appears to be working on change-I hope he stays consistent and follows through. Steve is okay sometimes, and then he rears his ugly head just when things have been going good for a week or two. Yesterday, confronted for not following some minor boundaries and he went ape shit. Yelled, screamed, and was a total asshole. Of course that sets me up for feeding into the behavior, and I do it very well. When I am screamed at, I also go ape shit and I yelled back at him so loud-could have heard it a block away. He said he was sick of having Spectra on his computer, (I’ll just bet he is) so I marched in and told him I took it off. Not really-he just thinks I did. Will see what happens!
I went off my anti-depressants a couple of days ago (tapering down) because it affected my ability to achieve an orgasm. I would rather be depressed than reach the brink and can’t quite get there. It is like being in hell.
So, who knows how that will affect my moods again. I might become psychogirl.

Wow, ladies, you are true survivors.

I have nothing like this in my immediate family – no history of violence, no abuse, received lots of love and kindness – we never went without although we were poor…

My mother was orphaned as a child, her mother had abandoned her and her sister, and then her mother died when she was 8. She was raised by a grandmother who died at the same time when I was less than a year old. My mum does have some understandable bitterness but I don’t think it spilt out to us. I know that I felt I had to do a lot to please her – I had to behave well and achieve – I’ve always had that about me… but I really don’t know. Dad has always been around – sometimes can be a little vacant but not in any other way than just doesnt think at times…
They’ve never argued in front of me – so I’m not sure I know how to resolve problems in a marriage – hence I enter the drama triangle.
No one else has ever abused me. I did experiment with canabis as a teenager and was very promiscuous and think that may be a reason I got paranoid quite easily. I know I “traded” sex for feeling wanted… hmmm – will let you know if therapy comes up with anything.

Ladies, your bravery is truly incredibly.

Thanks Lexie-No, I never take anything you say the wrong way. I do not look at it as lieing- (my justification). He is still in the infancy of his addiction and who knows what he will do if he thinks the spyware is off. It may just have been a good deterent for him. I guess I look at it as protecting myself. At this stage of the game, if he went back to porn I would not deal with that issue again. It has been one year this month since he has done it.
Don’t worry – he will not catch me, and secondly if I find something on there that gives me any clue at all he is back into fat-lady porn it, and lieing about it, it would be all over anyway. (repeating myself). In my book, we don’t have to be practically perfect-all is fair in love and war, and this is war!!
Ya, I forgot about Wellbutrin. I just figured my doc wanted me on a specific one, so just started taking it without much thought. Thanks. I will call him Monday and switch.

Lexie and Sharron,
this time belongs to you. It is the time of hearing how precious you are, how courageous, how resilient. It is for knowing that what happened to you was wrong wrong wrong. Sometimes I use a ritual to manage memories that brought pain and cruelty to my life. I write the story down and burn it, or bury it in the earth, or put it in a special box. By locating it in one place, I find the wings are clipped. It doesn’t pop up quite so much. It doesn’t seem so all-powerful. And I begin to take back the meaning of my life it would like to control.

It’s always a journey, not a quick fix. Thank you for the risk of sharing your life with us. It’s always how the healing begins. You will be stronger for having been vulnerable with us.

And again, well done for going on to live your life, laugh along the way, care about others, and continue to reach out.

xoD.

Growing up in my family, I have to say, was pretty normal most of the time. The one exception is that my Dad was an alcoholic and he came from a very alcoholic family. Though my Mom, who was a big enabler, always kept family secrets. She was the rock that held the family structure together. My Dad wasn’t around much, between work and traveling on business, we only saw him in the evenings and on weekends, but he was always drinking. Of course, back then, that was socially acceptable. Until my teenage years I came to notice his drinking and his rarely being there and his temper was pretty short and seemed as though it could be violent. We were all spanked as children. If one got in trouble, we all got whipped with the belt. We were raised catholic and went to church every Sunday and we all attended catholic schools (when they could afford it) and we all had to go through all the sacraments. My older brother left for the Air Force when he was 17; I was devastated. There were four of us kids, I was the youngest. My older brother was my protector when the other two would pick on me. We moved often (cross country 5 times) so we didn’t ever get a chance to settle somewhere and have anyone really good friend to lean on. Always different schools, never felt like I belonged at any of them. Always the new kid on the block. Fast forward to 19 years old and I got in an argument with my Dad at the dinner table and I soon found out just how “alcoholic” he was and how bad his anger had developed over the years. He ended the argument by taking his fork (yes another fork story) and plunging it into my arm on the table. My Mom told me to leave the house and without question, I surely did. I came back late that night after going to bars and drinking, sneaked into my room, went to bed. It was at that point in my life when I knew I had to get out and on my own. I moved (cross country, again) lived with my sister, started a career in the Savings & Loan industry, after 6 months got my first apartment, met my 1st husband and married at age 21, had my child at 24, got divorced after 9 years of marriage. It was then, that the hereditary alcoholism kicked in and I began relying on alcohol to deal with my pain of being a failure at everything I did. Nine years later I found myself in rehab after hitting bottom. Lost everything I ever had except my care. My self respect (as low as it was) was non existent. I spent 90 days in rehab, started working part time at a department store and was barely making enough money to pay my rent, eating 99 cent burritos every day and looking for full time work. Finally landed full time work 6 months later and began to build my life back again. I just celebrated 14 years sobriety this month and that’s about the only thing I’m proud of except the ranch and my animals, which is something I should have gotten into many many years ago and made some kind of living on it Because these animals have given me love like I’ve never known and I’ve enjoyed saving their lives and giving them a loving comfortable home.

Not sure where I was going with all of this but that’s my story and I thought I’d take a chance sharing it with ya’ll.

cbs- you are a very strong woman to overcome the addiction of ETOH. It really seems like a lot of us have come from dysfunctional families and overcome our demons. We need to pat ourselves on the back and say, “well done-I survived.”
Happy for you cbs. Love to you.