Tag: narcissistic parents

A Pox on You!

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

That’s what I used to read in my novels. If someone did something wrong to someone, the wronged would tell the other, “I hope a curse gets you! May you suffer for the wrong you’ve done!”

Ps 52

David was a man like that. He knew his weaknesses. He knew his strengths too. And he knew that everyone who was evil only had one place they were going to, only one ‘reward’ coming to them.

This is my strength. People may have the gumption and guts to spout absolute nonsense to or about me. They can be cruel if they want to. They can be nasty behind my back and smile at me and keep digging for information, not knowing I know they’re as real as a Brazilian weave on an African head. But their day is coming. So I’ll wait.

Random side note. Yesterday, I had a sad realisation. I was born with a club foot and feet facing ‘wrong.’ I had physio and stretches etc that were done to me to help me. At some point, I even wore special boots. Yet, instead of my ability to walk without having needed surgery being rejoiced over, my mother constantly told me to fix how I walk. I used to do ballet. You know how ballerinas toes point outwards? That’s how I walked. Toes out. And she HATED that. I was always told to “walk normally” or “properly.” I felt.. Life is not about looks or physique etc but I also grew up being told everything about mine was wrong. besides being ugly, having a large forehead etc, I couldn’t even MOVE right. I felt like an embarrassment and a shame. Which is what I had been told I was, so hey, wouldn’t you believe it if someone older than you kept telling you that?

Yet when I was older and had my boyfriend/husband, when we’d notice people who walked like that, we’d wonder if they were a dancer. He never thought they moved ‘wrong,’ he wondered if they’d done ballet! No man in his car ever mocked me for the way I walked, they wanted to get me into their cars.🤦🏾‍♀️None of my school friends who walked like me had been made to feel like they were an embarrassment. Just like when they got teen acne. I think I shared how my mom would go from doctor to doctor, not be able to pass by a cosmetic counter without asking for my son to be fixed. Yet it wasn’t even bad. It was just really a rash. Our family doctor didn’t even suggest anything medical. My mother is the one who made me wish I could fix my skin. Not my friends, not TV, not my own thoughts. My mom. And I didn’t realise I was being beaten down. I thought only the physical beatings and attacks were harmful.

And so yesterday, as I saw people walking in the shops-all different styles of walking, it hit me that I’d wasted decades fixing something that didn’t need fixing. I still automatically try walk “properly, like a normal person.” But I already was a normal person. And only at the ripe old age of 43 did I finally break free. When I realised that I saw nothing wrong with anyone else’s walking. If I see nothing wrong with them, perhaps my MOTHER was the one in the wrong…

The voice of our mother rings forever in our ears. We are’ trained from birth to love then and need them. After all, they feed us. And the world said we owe them.-whether they beat us (unjustly) or not.

I wish the world had told mothers that they owe their children love, security, uplifting, encouragement, wellbeing, kindness and safety.

My Daddy

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

I love my dad. I loved my mom too. But I’ll quote what a dear friend wrote…A friend who had lived with both parents for over a month, heard them talk about me, and been lectured about me.

“I’m so sorry to hear that, sis. I know you loved your mother though your mother never loved you…”

That is the essence of narcissistic parenting. They love you as long as you are following their own agenda for your life. You are extension of them, you are not your own person. And so, when I became an adult and followed my own agenda, I became a pariah. And the scapegoat.

My dad was violent but also had moments of softness and tenderness that I never got from my mom. I think that’s what stopped me from objectively telling myself, “This is abuse!” as an adult. Yes, as a child I did. But when it stopped being physical violence, I didn’t realise it was still a form of violence.

To again reiterate what my friend said after having spent time with my parents, “I can see why you wanted to escape when you weee young.” So to those who like to excuse the behaviour as “old age,” and somehow diminish the responsibility my parents have..That’s hogwash! It’s always been like this. And I know many old people who are NOT like this.

Let’s start in 2013. My mother was retiring. We decided to take our bonus and pay off her debts so she’d have no debt once retired. We did for MOST but had to keep paying her Truworths and Edgars accounts with our normal salary each month as her debts were greater than the bonus. We finished off the Truworths and then my sister moved in with her husband, and told me they had the Edgars bill under control so we could stop paying it.

That’s when everything went wrong. The data we used to buy my mom to go online, finished within two days when it used to last a month. Her bank cards would suddenly go missing and she’d have less money in her bank. Her laptops started disappearing too, and her cellphones also joined in. I wonder what changed!🫣

My poor mother in law sent phones three separate times till she realised that the problem would never end while the inhabitants lived there.

With our own funds, as a gesture of goodwill and love, we had been giving my parents (and now my sister and her husband) grocery every month. In the beginning, my dad was grateful. He was the only one who said thank you.

But in the past few years, things went crazy when we decided to save my mom her money and I took signing rights over her banking. (We went to the bank together and she willingly told the banker that I should have access to her banking even online.)

We started feeding them from the money from my mother’s pension, AND continued giving from our own pockets as well. This continued till my mother died. And that’s when my dad showed exactly where he stood.

I’d noted it. But I hadn’t clicked! The friend we hired to care for them was only meant to work Monday- Friday BUT lockdown started just as she was arriving. I told my sister the rules. After all, my sister is young and able bodied. Of course she could take care of the household during the weekends!! And I stated that the helping lady should have leave as well.

After four weeks of non stop working, day AND night, their caregiver told them in advance that she was going to go collect a mask, and just visit with a friend. When she got back, my father told her not to listen to me. The ‘Me’ who was paying her measly salary!😫He said I was “poison”🥹and that I was leading her astray. He said that she had to work all the time, as my sister had her five year old to care for.

Wow, wouldn’t it be nice to only have one child to care for and forget all other responsibilities? Of course, I reiterated that her salary was low, what we could afford was little. And that she deserved a rest. My father then asked her (or the neighbour) to take a photo of a letter he was sending me. He was telling me I am a Pharisee and failing at my duty of caring by allowing the poor worker to have a break. That God is angry with me etc.

Guys, this is not old age. My dad has always been like this, ask church members. Always publicly loudly correcting them, telling them they don’t study the Word…It was hurtful to know he could turn his venom on me. It was the first time that I could read for myself what my friend had told me- though I had believed her anyway!

One time, we brought grocery. My husband was putting the sugar my dad had demanded, into a cupboard. My dad yelled at him to open the packet and pour it into a container. Never has anyone thought of how long it takes us to shop for them. How it kills my body. How long it takes to drive to their township. The fuel spent. And how we’d left our children to their devices in all that time. Never! Instead, they’d complain about what we brought. It was hurtful, very hurtful. we didn’t do it for acknowledgment, but don’t bite the hand that feeds you!

But worse was to come. As my husband told my father that he would leave the sugar in the cupboard and my sister could open it, my dad went ballistic, yelling at him, telling him to leave my sister out of it! Huh!? She lived there!! She was eating the sugar too! We had to get home to our children! Then my father asked my husband to phone my sister and tell her to come back home as she’d been gone for too many days.

We’ve played that game before. My dad’s phone calls in the last five years consisted purely of him telling me the extra things I should buy for them, telling me to go look at some mess my mother had made, telling me on weekends to phone my sister and tell her to get back home. Note what was missing when he phoned? Asking how we are. Asking after the children. Phoning just to show he loved me. When my husband told him that every time we phone, my sister never answers so he doesn’t want to phone, my dad said, “Fine. I’ll tell the church people that my son doesn’t help me.”

🥹💔He would sully the name of the only one who was consistently feeding him? Just because he left to the resident, a duty that was hers? And it’s true, my father did indeed sully our reputations to church members and to relatives. It was the worst few years of my life. It was bad enough knowing my parents didn’t love me. But when relatives in other provinces started phoning me when I’d never given them my number, ordering me to sort things out in the home while I had Covid… It was hard. Very hard. My parents were telling people that we weren’t feeding them.

The betrayal hurt. Seriously!? I used to wish the people who were being lied to would go ask the neighbours. The neighbours saw how often we brought food, even commenting that it was a lot of stuff.

Fast forward after my mother’s death. We tried to save HIS money from being misused as it was the only income he’d now have. He then said that he’d heard from the news that workers like my mom had big pensions, so it was clear that I had been stealing my mother’s pension payments and only using a little for the home.😭

Me. ‘Me’ who’d even given our bonus for her. Who took our fuel to give them food. Who used our own money to buy electricity and food and personal care items. Who broke my back shooing for them. I was the thief. Not the one living right there causing cellphones to disappear.

So let’s recap. I’m a hypocrite Pharisee for letting a worker have one morning off after four straight weeks of working day and night. I’m terrible for not phoning my sister to return though I’d phoned multiple times before and been ignored. And I was being lied about to people when I was the only one consistently HELPING.

💔

And the family believed it. I didn’t even want to attend my mom’s funeral even though I’d paid for it. She can’t see me. And I can grieve at home just as much as in a service. Why sit with people who without ever asking neighbours etc, would believe that I was the neglectful daughter? (Though again, the income was enough even without our help, had my parents been living alone or with a caregiver.)

Then, a cellphone went missing again. And my dad blamed my children. Even telling social workers a relative had tried to involve given the poor care and disappearing monies. My eldest is over 18. Start accusing them of crime and things become VERY dangerous.

So I’m done. It’s one thing to constantly be phoned just to be used. It’s a whole other ballgame to accuse my children of theft. Next time, the accusation will be against ME! After all, I was accused of stealing a pension already.

Knowing that your parents are destroying your reputation when you’re sacrificing for them, is painful. Knowing they are defending the real thief is horrendous. That’s not a father. Well, not a father to ME. Only to the one being defended.

And so there it is. I don’t have parents in the sense I think of when others miss their deceased dad or mother. I have people who have used me, not cared at all about my declining health, abused the workers I hired and who now accuse my children – to a social worker!!- of stealing.

As my daughter said, “But grandpa knows the thousands of rands we spend every single month helping him and have spent for YEARS. If we wanted a cellphone, surely we’d have bought one? It’s obvious we could afford it!”

The final call I received from my father was December 31, 2023. He told me he was disappointed that my children (who were constantly in each others’ presence and that of their father who had driven him there!!!!) had stolen his phone.

I asked him if he saw them touching it.

He said no, but it went missing.

Before I could remind him that he lives with someone who makes phones disappear, the line cut. I didn’t call back.

The next day, I got a text from an unknown number, from someone who didn’t introduce themselves by name. They said they got my number from a neighbour. (I’ve never given my number away except to the one neighbour who wasn’t the one who shared my number.) The person said, “You better come fix what’s happening in your house. Your father is being mistreated.”

I told the person that I didn’t know them. That the abuse is by choice as my father refuses any other options we’ve given – caregivers, frail care centers and handing over his card to someone who would keep it safe and go shopping with him or for him. I told her that my house is the one I live in with my husband and family. I asked her never to contact me again.

And I changed my number.

When your father shares your number while making you look neglectful, never telling the things I’ve done despite my poor health, never even acknowledging to us that we paid to bury his wife and express gratitude for that (entitlement?) and hiding the truth about the true abuser, it’s time to acknowledge that the love is one sided.

I have a Heavenly Father. And that’s OK with me.

I Loved Her Part 2

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

One of the major lessons I learnt during my studies was that retelling a painful story over and over again is good. It takes the sting away with each retelling till it stops becoming something that happened to you, but just a ‘story.’ And so, I will tell till the pain is decreased.

Also, I’m hoping those who have condemned me unjustly will one day come across this and see the truth. (Don’t ask me how they’d find this blog,)

I shared in one of my YouTube videos that I was excited to get married. I was happy. And I deliberately chose April 27, Freedom Day, as I felt I was breaking free. Interestingly enough, a dear friend went to live with my parents and sister in 2020 and told me after a week, “Now I see why you wanted to escape.”🥹

After my wedding, my mother chastised me. I was apparently looking too happy at me wedding, as if they’d abused me. Never ever have I seen a happy bride and made it about her mother!🙄

One night, in June 2023, I thought back over my life. Why did my mother lie to my cousin and leave me vulnerable to her abuse? My cousin…In May 2022, I made the grave mistake of telling my cousin that with the inadequate care my mother was having under a relative supposedly living there to care but actually never there, my mother would lose her life earlier than she should. (A doctor had told me she was dying slowly.)

This cousin then asked me to hire a full time caregiver. She asked ME, an unemployed woman, to hire someone. Here’s the thing, this cousin KNEW I’d first hired my friend even though I myself didn’t have money for a helper for ME. And my poor friend lasted a whole six weeks before she had to leave.

There was too much abuse from all parties in the house.

I then hired a driver. My parents lived with an able bodied relative younger than I am. But still, we hired caregivers with OUR money while still providing grocery, toiletries and electricity for them every month since 2013. That person also quit due to abuse they were receiving. Also telling me that I was being abused-father expecting money from me while spending HIS money on the able bodied, employed relative living with them. And he-the driver-having to drive my father to the relatives WORKPLACE to ask why they’d stolen his social grant money. My father wept. Yet got angry with US, his non-thieving children, for referring to the habitual thief as a thief!🫣

Then we found them a three times a week cleaner and the poor lady quit because they weren’t paying her.

Under those circumstances, and the knowledge that my father wanted a slave, not an employee and given my medical costs were rising terribly, I refused when later in the week, cousin sent a message telling me I need to hire someone (again) despite my still feeding and providing electricity. (He even sat my friend down, telling her I was “poison” for allowing fat her a day off.)

I asked, “Why is it that my parents are suddenly my responsibility as if I went and chose them, finding them abandoned on the street. Why is it that though she has employed relatives, it’s all on ME, someone who is terribly ill all the time, having various co-payments for my tests and nobody asks if I can even afford what I’m already doing, let alone the extra stuff she is almost demanding?

I shouldn’t have dared voice my thoughts.

What followed was a diatribe I didn’t listen to. I sent her voice notes to others who knew her so they could hear the real person. One person wept. The other said I should swear at her, cuss back at her like she was cussing me. That there’s nothing wrong with adoption so for her to go on at me for having adopted was unChristian for this cousin who claimed she’s a Christian.

The first is something I’ve shared before. That I am lazy for not having paid employment. That my mother did various things for me so I owed her. (Black Tax!) worse yet, things she’d never done at all! Like paying for a flat for me and my BOYFRIEND to live in. You all know I’d never be living alone unmarried with a man!

She’s the one who said that because I went against her and my mother’s wishes about adopting, God cursed me and sent me the twins as punishment. Who said that I took my husband away to the mission field in Tanzania so he could also be unemployed like I was, supported by my mother. NOPE. I never viewed it that way, we both wanted to do mission work and my husband was doing remote work for his job. We never needed my mother’s money. Instead, we even regularly gave financial support to a newly widowed relative while out in the mission field.

What hurt was not only that I now knew for sure that she hated innocent babies finding parents, it was also the knowledge that my mother had lied about what she’d done for me. She did hate my life and who I was. But I didn’t know it would extend to lying about me in a negative manner and leaving me open to others abusing me. Your own daughter!??

I wept once after an appointment wishing I had a mother who loved me and would ask me how I am. The phone calls I used to get were asking for money. Now that will never happen. Instead I have the bitter knowledge that my mother lied to all and sundry about my life. Anything to make herself look good. Typical narc.

So, that night in June, I thought of my life compared to my other friends and their loving mothers who were great grannies to their children. How even my poor husband had tried to intervene. Had driven all the way to my parents to tell them they were hurting me and literally killing me (from stress which I was told to avoid big time for the sake of my stomach that gets inflamed.) See, as usual, we’d taken grocery etc to them and bought electricity. I had signing rights over my mother’s banking as the relative in the house seemed to be taking cellphones, bank cards, tithes, to live a life of’ fun’ while we fed her with never ever any gratitude. This employed relative sent a message the day after a surgery, asking me to buy something small. I told them I had just taken a whole lot of stuff to the house just a week before and they could surely rustle up the money to do what she wanted. They responded by telling me I am a fake Christian that doesn’t want to care for my parents. Make that make sense!

Husband went and told them they were abusing me. That I had had surgery the day before and I was no longer telling them when I had tests, operations as they never asked how I was, but only phoned me to abuse me. And he gave back the bank card which we’d topped up monthly so we could help. They responded with alleged sick and said that they’d call to apologise and admit their wrongs.

I’m still waiting for that call.

I wish you could feel the sense of betrayal and pain. This is a cousin much older than me, who I used to admire. I thought they loved me. I thought each message I sent telling them I’d be going silent as I was just about to have a procedure under anesthesia was seen. I thought they got me.

They then sent angry voice messages to my poor husband who was at work🤦🏾‍♀️ He too didn’t listen to them. He’s not a voice note person, I could have told her that.

So, my mother opened the door for others to abuse me. And THAT hurt a lot. That’s definitely not what society was saying mothers are for.

We go back to the night in June, 2023. I looked back over my life as a daughter. The childhood and adult insults. Strangers being told I’m a waste. And googled “Mother hates my body.” It took me to narcissistic mothers. “Your mother hates your body and here’s why…” I read site after site, identifying her as a narcissist. It finally came together. I’d yearned for my mother to be proud of me for being a law abiding relative giving her consistently my love through financial help since 2013. I thought she’d have boasted about us using our bonus to pay off three quarters of her debts when she retired. I hoped she’d one day appreciate my raising my children and educating them using a difficult curriculum like Cambridge.

But nope, narcs are only happy if you do things their way, and for THEM.

The next morning (after this random googling session and light bulb moment), I was told she had died. Do you believe we get communication or pre knowledge when our parents die? My husband did. He just suddenly stopped the blender and said, “My dad has just died.” He was correct. And so, I believe that that sudden late night search over characteristics of my mother was my premonition or warning. It was finally going to end. Never an apology, nothing. No telling me she loved me.

My mother’s relatives came. None said they were sorry for my loss. I’m not surprised and had even wanted not to go. It’s not like she’s seeing me. Ecclesiastes says the dead know nothing. Psalm says the grave holds sleeping bodies that do nothing… You see… Some December, I suddenly got a call and then audio notes from one of her nephews. In NATAL! Telling me I must go take care of her. I don’t know why they had my number. And you don’t order anyone around, let alone someone with her own family and problems.

See, the relative my parents defended when we called them out for stealing from my parents, has left them alone and one night my mother had fallen and this relative could not be found. (We’d had family meetings about their neglect of my parents. This relative is why I’d hired someone to do what they should do.) My mother slept on the floor and this random relative in Natal was more phoning me telling I must do something. With what back?? What strength? And.. WHY? They had their golden child living with them (What narcissist experts call the favorite relative *ahem*) and this golden child together with my parents, was telling all and sundry that she’s caring for them. While eating the food we were buying. So let that relative do the care work m! And more importantly, why phone me who lives far away? Phone the person they rely on, not the one they lie about.

When I told my friend who’d spent over a month with my parents, that my mother has died, her beautiful response was, “I’m sorry. You loved your mother though she didn’t love you back.” A different relative who knew the family dynamics asked, “did your mom ever apologise to you for the things she has told our family, did she make things right with God?” Those were the right responses. They’d seen it. I was abused and needed to receive an apology and God needed a repentant person, waiting for the resurrection.

No. She didn’t ever apologise.

So yes, I was scapegoated by these people so not a single soul greeted me. They climbed into funeral Mercs we’d paid for but never said a word to us. THAT was over. No more parental pain…

But I had two parents.

Emotional Trauma Part 1

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

I just finished reading *Psalm 6, and it reminded of the narcissistic parent and sibling issue. So here goes.

I was a child whose father as more overtly loving. Unlike my mother who told me I was ugly, had a large forehead, looked like a boy, had thin calves, couldn’t dance, had too wide hips (That one only came in adulthood) and looked ugly with short hair (Said when I cut my hair and was growing my locs)

Unlike my mother,y father never told me my lips were ugly, embarrassing and looked like those of a drunk. He told me I was his black beauty, I had skin like dark mahogany wood and he would dance with me and play with me- when I was under six years old. I have fond memories of him. He made scones, made us yummy hot chips and made us porridge for breakfast. He also made amagwinya (vetkoek) and until I started cooking at age 13, cooked quite a lot as well.

But he also used to beat us mercilessly with a long cane. I don’t know what it was made from, it was like flexible wood. Or, like a very hard whip. It was as thick as my index finger and not breakable. He would beat us even when we knew we hadn’t done anything ‘wrong,’ no matter what age we were. Whether it was a mistake (like mistakenly breaking a vase while sweeping), or childish naughtiness. As I got older, I started realizing that he wasn’t punishing us, he was abusing us. I remember one time he was chasing my little sister with the cane and I told her to run. I tried to lock us into the bathroom but knew there’d be even more trouble when we came out. I tried to get into his way and run in front of him but then he just whipped me instead and still ran after her. I told him he was abusing us and would phone the police – didn’t help. And I didn’t know if Black police officers would really have viewed it that way anyway. So I didn’t.

School…My father wanted me to get an education. Even on decades “stay away” days when our people were on strike to try force the apartheid government to take us seriously, when my own school headmistress spoke to us and told us it would be ok for me to stay home so they don’t attack us for breaking their rules, he took me to school. He even took me to school when the whole country was on lockdown and no school was open, thankfully stopped from leaving me outside the gates alone, hates that wouldn’t open, by another dad who had arrived first and told him there was absolutely nobody there so he shouldn’t leave me behind. He valued education above everything else. We had a Christian version of Girl Scouts at our church. From 10-12 on Sundays. If I hadn’t done all our homework, my dad would stop us from going. I’d remind him that I had the whole of the afternoon to do it. He refused. For me as a young child, it felt like he was putting secular education ABOVE God. As mentioned before, my mother definitely didn’t value God at all. She’s the one who mocked me when she walked into my room when I was 16 years old, “What? You’re reading your Bible? Are you trying to make yourself holy?” Wow. “Staunch Adventists” as her sister claim they are.

I will summarise it this way. Two Sabbaths ago, my daughter asked if I miss being young. If I missed being a little girl her age. I told her honestly. “No. No I don’t. My mom used to hit me for anything and everything with whatever was next to her hand. My dad also used to whip us. They didn’t help me with to school work and weren’t fair. I used to wish a kind mom and dad would adopt me. I don’t miss being a child at all.”

I did. I’d seen my friends’ moms. They were even kinder to me than my own parents. They cared about my preferences. My parents hated that I was a bookworm. My friend’s mom let me read books at my friend’s birthday party! I am such an introvert! I’m embarrassed NOW! But it was a pool party, I was 13 and didn’t know how to swim as doctors had told me to never let my ears get water after having recurring middle ear infections from age 3 upwards. It was a PARTY!!! But while the rest of our friends, and the birthday girl played in the pool, I sat quietly reading a book her mom had told me to choose from her personal bookshelf. “N told me you like reading and are shy. If you want to read something, I’ve got lots of books here!” Never ever did a parent ever even know my preferences! When I was 16, I told my mom that my smoking friend had invited me to a club. What we called a rave back then. (I don’t know if they still have raves today.) I was telling my mom in the context of, “Can you believe she asked ME, a Christian girl, to a RAVE!?” My mom’s response was a questioning, “So why aren’t you going??”

Preferences. I was a bookworm that loved my Bible. THAT was wrong. I should have been going to clubs.

Upside down parenting and I didn’t realise it back then. I didn’t realise that the continued insults about my personal, my personality, my body, my looks were abuse. I was abused not only physically, but emotionally or psychologically. And the scars remain for a long time.

But there were moments that made it better. Where I thought, “Well, I’m ugly in my mom’s eyes, but others don’t think so. Maybe I will find a husband who thinks I’m beautiful.”

The Coloured bakery lady at Pick n Pay when I was in high school who called a Black man from the back to say to him, “Look at her! Isn’t she beautiful!!???” I wanted to cry. I had never been ‘admired’ before for anything except my singing by the choir mistress.

Or the Coloured homeless lady when I was in university who told me, “Oh my word! Look at your smile! Everybody!! Look at her beautiful smile! I was having a bad day, girlie. But your smile has filled my heart.”🥹

How could I forget a few years ago? Sitting in a restaurant in Durbanville and a White Roman comes to me and says, “I hope you don’t mind me coming to say this. But my daughter is 11 and she’s been staring at you all evening! She said you’re beautiful! You look like a princess!”

And even today, I have a friend who tells me I look younger than my 43 years and tells me I’m beautiful. I have a friend who LOVES my grey hair. (My mom used to make me dye her hair black.) One day I’ll believe the kind voices. One day they’ll permanently drown out all the negative words I heard over my 43 years of life from the one who should have been my biggest support and who society taught us loved us the most. What a warped idea of love did I grow up on? (Totally grammatically wrong! But that’s what I knew. My mom loves me. She buys me things. She beats me. And she tells me I’m ugly.) She told me she couldn’t wait for my locs to grow so I stop looking ugly. They grew but she found other things to be negative about. I don’t know why I hoped it would end one day.

And actually, yes, mom. I do want to be holy. And God is ok with that! And for Him and others who love Him, LOOKS DON’T MATTER! He doesn’t point our perceived physical flaws out to us. Nor make life all about looking beautiful. He wants the heart, though I will say I know I am fearfully and wonderfully made!

I’ll end with this. The last thing my mother said to me before her death, the very last words she spoke, were, “You’re fat. Your lips finally look better than they did but you’re fat. But that’s good. I like fat.”

When I went to the house upon hearing she’d died that morning, as we got out the car, I reflexively buttoned up my jacket, thinking to myself, “Ok, close it up so mom doesn’t tell me I’m fat. Maybe she won’t mention it…” (I’m very sensitive about my big post- twin pregnancy belly)

Then I remembered. Her words would never come from her mouth ever again. I was there because she was dead.

* I will share Psalm 6 at a different time. It reminded me of someone who was given the power to utter vile words by my mother.

Healing Through Stories

Grace by any other nameLeave a comment

I have nobody in my shoes. And the one friend who is very adept at putting herself in my shoes is always “very busy” so by the time she has responded and put herself in my shoes, I’ve got a whole new pair of shoes on!🙃

So, I will be doing a video sometime soon on going no contact with my birth family. How unnatural that is. All around me, my friends had these awesome mothers. Mothers who mothered ME when I visited them. Parents I thought and KNEW I deserved. But..it’s time to end the cycle of pain. And I’ll lay it out via video. And why? Well, I think you’ve read a bit of why, but the why I’m referring to is, “Why a video?”

I heal through the stories of others. There’s a man who said one needs to have a qualified professional guide them but many comments stated how they can’t afford it, or more worrying for me with my back pain that would be worsened by sitting through counseling, there are no trauma qualified counselors in their areas anyway. Or they try, but the counselor /therapist tells them to “make peace with” their toxic relatives, ‘forgive them’ and KEEP EXPOSING themselves to the trauma.

I’m not going to waste money and time and health to potentially sit through someone ELSE who will invalidate my pain. I get enough of that for free! I am learning more and more to not share with others because unlike that one person in the above paragraph, through no fault of their own, people can’t read nuances. Or don’t wonder about the impact something has on your mental health. For example, let’s pretend I’ve told you that my favourite aunt just ranted and raved and swore at me. And you just say, “Wow, so much for her being a Christian.” But never dive into, “What!? So all these years she has been fake!? Oh no. Do you feel betrayed? How did you feel?? I can’t imagine how I’d feel if someone I loved turned on me like that when I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

Or I tell you, “I have to accept that I will never have a father. I kept hoping and waiting.”

And get..no response.

I can’t put into words how silence is violence.

And so how will I heal? By telling MY story. I set up my channel to inform and to help. And the help I received this morning was from others’ videos. By helping whoever might come across it in the future, I will help myself.

By expressing myself fully, I will heal myself by taking the power into my hands- there’s also violence in this cultural notion of “don’t tell people what’s happening in the family.” It’s usually said by the people most harmful and hurtful. Usually said to the victim of their toxicity. Nope. I will say what I want!

By not waiting for a “I can’t imagine the disappointment and hurt you’re feeling” that you’d expect from someone you’ve unburdened yourself to, I save myself the pain of invalidation. A camera is just recording. I don’t expect a verbal or written hug from it.

Win-win. Someone else might weep when they come across my experience that mirrors theirs as I wept earlier on today. Weeping is cathartic. You finally allow yourself to start the mourning process. And nobody will give me an end date to mourning, just like I don’t give anyone a timeline to end their own mourning.

We were a very close knit, (and I THOUGHT) loving family all believing in the same God and wanting the same for each other. I was wrong. To finally realise that I was wrong, that I truly am just something to be USED..not a human to LOVE, is …You’ll find out later. AFTER I change my number…😝