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DamagedButNotBroken

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Blog Comments posted by DamagedButNotBroken

    teleah

    Posted

    The person who is not worthy in this situation is your father. And it sounds like your step-father treats you as an adult who is an equal, whereas your sister still gets treated like a child. This is because YOU grew into a strong capable adult. 

    Still, I understand your hurt. You were hurting and this man you wished had been your father chose to commiserate and not comfort.. Teleah deserves  comfort from her friends and loved ones, so ((((((((Teleah))))))). 

    Teleah is worthy and deserving. I cannot say the same for your father. HE was not worthy of a daughter like you. 

    Sitting with you. Take good care. 

    DBNB

    teleah

    Posted

    :bighug: 

    Sitting with you, so sad for little teleah. We all want to think that our abusive parents were more than that. Our little selves want heroes to look up to. They want to be helpful. They had to dissociate to feel like they had parents who were like other kids' parents. So it's very hard to be unified in understanding that some of them are more monster than parent. I am so sorry that you are going through this, it is emotional torture. 

    For me, the hardest part is making peace between the parts of me who want to be the good helpful child for my father—the ones who are loyal—and the ones who know the truth and can no longer even partially defend him. I have a protector part who has hated him and looked down on him since I was 9, and my loyal parts made me feel so terrible for thinking so little of my father "after all he had done for me." Is this sounding familiar at all? :/

    Anyway, you are not fighting alone, OK? The most important thing, I think, is to accept all the parts of yourself who have fragmented as a result of this. To try to make some peace between the loyal ones and the rebellious ones; to realize that they all had their reasons and that all of their feelings are valid and very natural responses to trying to make sense of this mindfuckery at a young age. You are allowed to feel those things at the same time--you don't have to pick one. It feels like losing your mind, but it may also help you understand that you weren't WRONG to try to make him into a dad like everyone else's. You were so small--and he was all you knew. He groomed, brainwashed, and gaslighted you from day one, so that you could be HIS. You are not his any more. You will never be his any more. You have protected yourself against him as much as you can right now, and you can keep yourself safe from him. 

    I know you are tired. I know how that feels, and I am there too. It feels like getting to the end of a hard-fought marathon and realizing that you actually signed up for a 100-mile ultra-marathon, and you have another 73.8 miles to go...and I feel like my legs can't carry me another step. 

    Well, this isn't a race, even though sometimes it feels like it is. No. We are trying to get to a place where healing is possible. Unfortunately, I think it means getting to a full place of knowing, so we can make peace with our own reactions, at least to some extent. Your memories are attempting to get you out of the dual reality that you grew up in and putting into one brutal reality. You are seeing him for what he really is, and you are seeing what you were up against for what it really was. It is so incredible that you survived and you made it this far. You had no defenses and you had no one to turn to. But you made it. 

    The only kind of person who can get through what you got through is an incredibly strong person. 

    Sitting with you against the monsters who we wished were heroes, who we were TOLD were heroes--

    DBNB

    :hug:

     

    teleah

    Posted

    teleah it sounds like your mother did what she always did regarding you, and regarding anyone else in her family, really. She used your sister to divide you, because if the two of you banded together, you would have been a threat to the control she had over the family. And if you trusted your sister and if your sister was an affirming part of your life, the two of you might have had a relationship which would have been one more thing that your mother would be both jealous and enraged about. She had more power with you divided in your corners. Your mother could have said anything about your sister she wanted, as long as it would hurt you and keep you in the gaslit world where teleah is weak and stupid. She is nothing of the sort. Teleah is 100 times the woman your mother ever could be, and you are stronger, more resilient, more capable, and more "together" than your sister. I know that's not the point, but it is what I see. The bigger point is that yes, your sister was and is human, and she still had your mother as a mother--and you can see how devastating that was to your sister, just to have your mother as a mother. 

    Your relationship with your sister is not completely irreconcilable. But talking to her is always triggering and difficult for you. Just be careful and take care of yourself--

    :hug:

    Wishing you peace,

    DBNB

    teleah

    Posted

    We are hard-wired as human beings to think the best of our parents. They are our role models, they are our world, they are like gods to little kids. Also, since it was clear that your father was not going to take care of your mother, SOMEONE had to. Also, it seems that your mother was truly incapable of caring about anyone but herself. What I think is perhaps the most important thing to focus on in all of this is not how capable they were of gaslighting you (the power dynamic combined with the horrible combination of narcissistic/borderline mother and predatory father would have been too much for literally ANY child to understand—it is something only an adult could possibly comprehend, and I think that even that is a tall order, as my mind is breaking trying to understand how anyone could do this to little teleah, who only wanted to be a helpful child), but rather to focus on the fact that even with these two truly horrible parents as role models, you didn't BECOME LIKE EITHER OF THEM. From the beginning, you were a loving, caring, generous human being, and of COURSE this is something that neither of them could possibly understand. They could not see the gift that they had been given, and instead of nurturing that child, they did everything they could do to suppress you, to make you invisible, to negate your existence, to make you THEIRS. But you are NOT theirs. You are, and always have been, teleah. They can never take that from you. You are who you always have been, and that person is someone who wants to help, someone who can't help but to care. 

    Being gaslighted by a predator and a hateful narcissist is not something to be ashamed of, it is something to be angry about, something to just be hurt by. The child who is at the receiving end of such abominable treatment deserves nothing but support and sympathy, not more hatred and scorn. Don't fall into the trap of continuing your mother's hatred of that helpless girl. Be the mother she never got. 

    Supporting you, and supporting helpless little teleah. She never deserved this, she is a thousand times the human being either of her parents have ever been, and YOU don't deserve to be hit by all of this. It's devastating. 

    Sending you safe hugs,

    DBNB

     

    teleah

    Posted

    (((((((teleah)))))))

    I'm celebrating you today, because I am truly grateful you are here. Sending safe hugs of support in celebration of your kindness, warm-heartedness, and courage, which is evident to me in every post and comment of yours. 

    You are valued and appreciated :)

    :hug:

    DBNB

     

     

    teleah

    Posted

    Sitting with you, teleah, sending support and offering to go to the memorial with you in any way I can. I'm so sorry you are going through this, so sorry for the pain you have to bear right now. I am happy to share any of it with you, and I know others will as well. 

    (((((teleah)))))

    DBNB

     

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