Hi Teresa .... great post! I have 2 totally different experiences .... I'll try to keep them short. I was an only child raised in a totally alcoholic home .... my whole maternal side were alcoholics. My mother always seems to hate me, be a problem to her, always in the way, and her favorite name for me was "you rotten little SOB." I hid a lot, got locked in closets, dragged to bars (not lounges ... nasty bars) every weekend, and just generally was mocked and set up for ridicule every chance they could get. My father also was an alcoholic but had very little to do in my life .... I was "the great disappointment " ..... I should have been a boy. My mother died at 60 years old from alcoholism and esophogeal hemorrage, and my father died about 10 years ago from Alzheimers. Being the only kid, I was the one responsible for seeing that they were in the best place and got the best care. When they both died, I felt nothing ..... I did not shed one tear. I just went through the motions ... I didn't know them, and they didn't care one whit about me. In therapy, after about 10 years, it came to me that my mother just did what was done to her ... I saw her in my mind as a little girl with a tough Scotch woman as a mother raised in rural Cape Breton Island. That really softened me up quite a bit to her, but still no grief.
Ten years ago I got divorced, after a 40 year marriage to a Narcissist who belittled everything I said, did, wore. I thought it was "normal" as that was the way I was treated in my family's home. Well, during therapy and the reading of several books, I realized it was NOT good and NOT healthy for me. So, after 4 years of struggle to get him into marriage therapy, I realized he had not one good thing to say about me except I was a good mother. Now I'm not belittling that at all, but it showed he had no clue who I was at all. We got divorced, and all during this time - about 6 years of pain, I grieved, cried, couldn't believe he thought so little of me, and even had a breakdown. Thank God for a wonderful therapist who walked me through years and years of that terrible time, and for the Psychiatrist who helped me with the anxiety and depression. I now feel free, have moved near my girls (which has been tough in itself), but I have freedom for the first time in my life. I am NOT stupid, I CAN make my own decisions, and I WAS a good mother, as shown by my 3 kids.
abby