We are conditioned not to talk about family secrets. I was taught in so many ways that ‘some things are not talked about’ and I was so afraid of the consequences of bringing shame on my family that I ignored the solution to overcoming the mental health issues that I had. Rejection from my family when I was a little child would have meant death. I believed as an adult that it STILL meant death.  I had to overcome that fear.

Even when the family members are dead, the victims of dysfunctional family situations are very often STILL just as afraid to reveal the family secrets, which is very telling about just how deep this fear goes when it comes to the belief system.

People told me that they didn’t have a choice about keeping the secrets even when they became adults. I agreed with them because not taking my choice about telling enabled me to have an excuse to not have to do the work that it took to take my life back. I had to look more closely at what it meant for me to believe that I didn’t have a choice. I had to see that it wasn’t that I DIDN’T have a choice as much as it was just that I didn’t KNOW I had a choice.

This belief that I could not, must not tell was rooted in victim mentality and I had to keep in mind that this “victim mentality” is how I survived a childhood of abuse and emotional neglect. Victim mentality was my friend when I was a kid. It saved me. It was hard to understand that victim mentality was not my friend anymore. My mind warned me constantly NOT to see things differently, believing with all my heart that the only way to survive this life was to operate in that same child mindset that kept me

The Ghosts of Dysfunctional Christmas Past  

When I was fifteen years old, it was my father’s turn to have us kids for Christmas. I was the middle child of three teenagers. We lived with our mother just outside of Toronto Ontario.  We were going to take the train to our fathers house in Montreal Quebec. But my mother didn’t want me to go that year. My mother guilt tripped me about how alone she would be and how hard it would be for her to be by herself for Christmas. 

So I stayed with her and my brothers went to Montreal without me.

My insecure and narcissistic mother was always painting such nasty pictures of my father, and deep down I was extremely torn between the two of them.  I knew it would make my mother happier if I turned against him and I was always worried about her happiness. I felt guilty for wanting to see my father. I did not want my mother to know that I actually wanted to go to my fathers place for Christmas. SO when I decided not to go there for Christmas, I thought that my compliance with my unloving mother’s wishes in the case of that Christmas would gain me great points with her! I believed that finally I was going to prove to her that she was the most important person to me and then she would finally love me! I had dreams and hopes of

daggers of self blame

Looking back on my life, it is evermore clear to me how hard I looked for excuses to blame myself for the dysfunction in my life. There is a very good reason that children take on the blame: it was safer to blame themselves. Blaming “them” was fruitless. I could not “make them change” but “I knew” I could always “try harder”.  I believed that if I could “do good enough” that they would finally love me.

It was very hard for me to learn to see things through a new grid because I had been consistently taught things a certain way. The way that I was taught things became my grid of understanding. My grid of understanding was the way that I saw and believed that life worked.  Dysfunction was my normal. I believed things worked in life a certain way, because that is how I was “taught” life worked.  As I got older, outside influences added to those teachings, confirming them and cementing them firmly in my mind. This is what I call my belief system. 

One of the things that I have discovered about my belief system is that although when I got older I was taught that I can change my thinking by practicing a new thought or belief over and over again, (positive affirmations or positive thinking) the truth was that until I found the original false belief and

It was bad enough that my parents divorced, but then they started fighting about child support. My mother had custody and my father paid child support. My mother said she didn’t have enough money from my father; my father said that he couldn’t afford what he was paying.  No one seemed to care about the difficult emotions that I was going through as a child whose parents had split up.  They only seemed to care about what it was costing them. 

Imagine the message I got as that child. I was 13 years old when the child support argument started. The message that they communicated to me was that my father thought I was a financial burden. My mother thought I was a financial burden too.  No one thought I was “worth it”.  I felt as though suddenly everyone wished I was never born because now that they divorced, no one wanted to be financially responsible for me.

My needing to be supported seemed to be causing a lot of fighting and anxiety and fighting and anxiety went against everything that I had EVER learned about survival.  As a survivor I lived by the rule “don’t cause fighting or anxiety”. Now I was caught in the crossfire of this divorce and it seemed that I was causing a very big problem. 

I started stealing my clothes within a year of their separation.  I would do almost anything not to be a burden to my parents. Stealing was like “my contribution” to helping out with the financial burden that I was. But stealing also made me feel really bad about myself and added to the growing body of evidence that

When a shark bites the damage needs to be attended to and then that damage needs to heal. The fact that something may have been wrong with the shark doesn’t assist in healing that damage nor does it change the facts about that damage.  

Many of us come up with the term “narcissism” when we look into our family history and conclude that our mothers had narcissistic personality disorder.  Sometimes it is the father that fits the description. The diagnosis of Narcissism seems to answer so many mysteries and questions.

At first, realizing that my Mother had the symptoms and all the signs of narcissism I was relieved that I finally realized and even understood what was wrong with her. I felt like I had finally found the answer. I had this kind of “OH NOW I UNDERSTAND” feeling. But the more I thought about it, I wasn’t any farther ahead knowing that she fit the description of being a narcissistic mother.  

She also suffers from depression and is on medication for that too. But that knowledge also didn’t help me overcome the damage that has been caused to ME because the damage is there regardless of

Sometimes it strikes me that my blog may not be “fair” to my mother because I had two parents and the truth is that my father did as much damage in my life as my mother did. Although I want to write about my father, there just isn’t much to write. My father was emotionally unavailable and emotionally absent and by definition my father was emotionally abusive.

My father didn’t contribute much to my life at all. He didn’t pay attention to me, he didn’t affirm me, he didn’t communicate with me in fact I don’t know what role he did play in my life other then financial support while I was growing up. 

I think that my father is dissociated. The “disconnected from the world and from himself” kind of dissociated. Perhaps he has dissociative identity disorder and since that is what I had, I know a lot about it.

My father is passive and apathetic as though nothing matters and nothing impacts him. He refers to himself as easy going. I think that he is passive abusive and as I said emotionally abusive.

Why was my father so apathetic when it came to me? Why did he behave as though I didn’t matter and communicate that message to me through so many of his actions and inactions? Growing up, I didn’t think that it was about HIM. I thought that it was something that was wrong or missing in me.  Realizing that he was dissociated at first made me say “OH YA that makes sense” BUT it didn’t go any distance towards my freedom from the pain I had always had in relation to my emotionally unavailable father.

People say things like “well at least he didn’t beat you.” And I never knew what to say to that. That statement is a guilt trip. It is like saying …

As a child I was taught that there would be peace if I didn’t upset anyone.  I was taught that if I complied and if I did what was expected of me; if I was quiet and polite and if I didn’t stand up for anything that went against what the adult in the situation deemed the “right way” to do things, that I would be loved and accepted. 

My mother was fragile. She was prone to depressions and what she called nervous breakdowns. She made it very clear all of my childhood that if I upset her, she would have a “breakdown”. My mother ended up in the hospital when I was little with what was called “a nervous breakdown” back then. I am sure that this event had a major effect on me and that it settled somewhere in my belief system and added to my beliefs that if I upset someone they may end up in the hospital and everyone knows that people die in hospitals. Not only does a little mind wander all the way to “death” but think about the fear of abandonment and all that that implies. I could not survive

“YOU’RE NOTHING BUT TROUBLE! YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU GET” by Fi Macleod

This statement was used many times during my childhood. As a result I developed deep self-blame. I bore responsibility for things which were actually nothing to do with me. The self-blame is combined with deep shame and guilt. The self-blame came through a combination of verbal and non-verbal messages from my abusers and messages from the abuse itself.

 “You’re nothing but trouble, you deserve everything that happens”

“You deserve it because you’re a girl, we didn’t want a girl”

“You deserve it because you’re evil”

“You deserve it because the bible tells us you deserve it”

“You deserve it because….”

 “You deserve it just because we say you deserve it”

I never knew when they’d decide I “deserved” a beating, or I “deserved” to be thrown across the room or I “deserved” to be starved or I “deserved” locked in my room or I “deserved” whatever they chose. It was very oppressive. I asked myself many times “what it is about me that is

 Sexual Abuse at the Hands of a Youth Pastor by Shanyn Silinski

Mark 9:42 “And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.

 For years it was me who wore the millstone of being dirty, whorish, asking for it, trash and I wore it silently because my abuse at the hands of a youth pastor was a secret for years.  He knew, of course, and because of the shame I didn’t tell.  I paid the price for his secret desires, and his willingness to touch a child.  I look back on the photos of that weekend.  I was just a kid.  Not ‘blooming early’.

When I finally did tell someone, I was told, don’t be so dramatic, it wasn’t you he wanted but me (my mother). Take it as a compliment.  This was years later, and I realized that she knew he lusted after her, and she thought somehow, in hindsight, that it was okay to have your daughter serve as substitute. 

I remember it so clearly, driving in the truck, finally breaking the silence.  Hoping and praying for something more than that.  I was worried what if he hurt other girls and was ‘assured’ I was

Lets have a nice cup of coffee and forget all about "it".

What do people mean when they declare in an exasperated voice “Well sorry! I’m not perfect”

There are different versions of this statement said in different ways, with different voice inflictions so for the purpose of “fog busting”, here are a few of them:

“I’m not perfect” This is stated as though “perfection” is what I am asking for and implying that the problem is not their actions but in fact my expectations.

“Well sorry I’m not perfect”; Stated as a plea to make me sorry that I made this person feel bad. Once again this is turned around on ME indicating that I have done or said the wrong thing and that the problem is actually NOT theirs, but mine.

“I never said I was perfect” Stated a little heavy on the sarcasm indicating that once again I have asked too much and indicating that my expectations are