Childhood A need to understand my abuser.

[Fadeaway]

I know I will never understand the logic behind my grandmothers actions because it seems so illogical to me, yet here I am google reason why someone would act a certain way towards a child.

Why would someone withhold affection from a child.
Why would they ruthlessly criticize a child for actions the child did in an attempt to make the adult proud.
Why would cling to minor infraction and remind the child of them daily even as the child became an adult. ("Remember that time you failed your math test in first grade?"" )

Or constantly remind the child of times that they felt humiliated.

Why would someone sometimes admit abuses done to the child by others and the turn around the next minute and insist that they had no knowledge of it, or that the now adult child must be making it up.

One big clue I have in this, and I am trying to find out if this fits any know disorders, but my grandmothers willful ignorance about anything topic, not just abuses that occurred. She has a complete lack of curiosity in all subjects. She takes he prescription her dr. givers her and admits she doesn't bother to learn what the medication is for, and pays no attention to even the name of the medication. I asked her the name of the medication and she told me one of them was warrifin, and I told her it was a blood thinner. Her response was I don't know why you are so interested in that stuff but it just proves you are being a lazy snot when you could be a Doctor.

Anything I ask her, she either doesn't care or isn't interested and doesn't know why I would be. This includes her mothers maiden name. Her response is that she never thought to ask, it wasn't important.

My grandmother also got frustrated with the fact that I liked to read instead of working on being famous. The only thing she saw of any value was fame. I guess that is why my One Hit Wonder pedophile uncle who for the last 20 + years has lived with mummy who can't even do his own laundry or make his bed without mummys help, was loved by her but she didn't love me.

I get some of it was religious brainwashing, but the hypocrisy of crtizing the divorced woman next door for taking a lover out of wedlock while turning her back on her own childrens drug use and and the abuse the commited against others including myself and complaing meant I was a snot who thought I was better than everyone else and needed to be brought down a peg.

I have to heal, I can't live the way I do any more, so this is one of many avenues I am currently working on. If I can lable her behavior, maybe I can forgive my self .

 

[Friday]

IMO... Because she's a horrible person. Cruel, petty, hateful, & vicious.

I don't really go for "whys" most of the time. But that's how I would label her behavior, which happens to neatly slot into my opinion of horrible. If you like those sorts of things, instead of despise them? A different label would apply.

People are complicated. The most wonderful people can do the most terrible things, and the worst of people can do wonderful things. But it's all a matter of opinion. Best, Good, Neutral, Bad, Worst. What we, ourselves, believe to be right & true. What we choose to align ourselves with, and choose to set ourselves against.

^^^
That's part of why other people's opinions of me don't matter. They tell me nothing about myself, and everything about the person who holds those opinions. It tells me what they think, and feel, and believe. Not my worth. But what they value.

To label the behavior yourself? I think you would have to decide how you view it, yourself.

 

[shimmerz]

Most of my healing I was told over and over again not to ask questions about why, or who would, or what would make them, or how could they not see. I asked anyways. I researched, asked others, watched others, and still stood in disbelief. I simply couldn't understand how others could be so disconnected.

I get, in my own way, why you are seeking out these answers. And really, it may well be an exercise in futility, because who really knows what others are thinking? Why they do what they do. And I also came to a realization (which put my search for answers to rest) that if I actually understood a person like that - like really understood them - that I would be able to relate to them on a level that I didn't want to be able to.

I mean, who wants to know why a pedophile does what they do? Or a rapist. Or a sadist?

So I guess the question I have to ask is; Do you have a sense of what you are wanting to know when looking for these answers? Are you trying to figure out if you could have done something to stop your grandmother from, well, being your grandmother? Are you wanting to know if you deserved it somehow? Are you wondering if there are evil genes in the gene pool?

Or is it simply that you want to label? Because if I was to label based on what you have mentioned just in this posting, I would say she is a twisted, self serving, insecure, abusive bitch who can't see beyond her own needs which she failed to achieve herself.

Beyond that she would need a psyche exam. But I am pretty sure people like her would never do that because there is absolutely no awareness inside of them that they are damaging anyone (because nobody else is on their radar).

So is a label of her behaviour good enough or do you want to research based on a psyche label. If so, I would go for narcissistic/sociopathic stuff. Not because that is what she is, but to see if you can find likenesses in her behaviour to maybe help you sort out what this behaviour may be.

 

[Pjj]

I know why my 2 consecutive neighbours abused me, my mother had taught them and this was a very cynical power play, that and the fact that they were perverts. 16 yrs old and me 5years old for the next 5 years. Sometimes it is better not to know why because this realisation tears me apart.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

If I can lable her behavior, maybe I can forgive my self .

Forgive yoirself for what? None of what I read makes me think you did anything wrong.

You cannot make sense of nonsence. It is just the way it is. There may be reasons but those are not excuses.

But, I do get why you are trying to figure this out. I did the same once I saw that my mom & step father was abusers. My mom turned from a good Christian woman, wife, and mother to a cult leader. It is the main reason no one believes me as they isolated me when my dad left so the only thing my family & family friends saw was the good christian woman, wife, and mother. I was stuck in therapy because I needed to understand why the drastic turn and why me.

You can say that my step dad brainwashed her. But my therapist had me go further. Her mom had 14 kids, she was #13. Her father was VERY physically and emotionally abusive. I am unsure about sexual but my therapist thinks its very possible given the entire context of my trauma. After her dad died, my mom found her mother trying to drown herself in a bucket of water and had to have her committed into a mental ward when she was 16. At age 17 she met my 30 yr old father in a bar, and they were married shortly after.

She was not raised a christian and she was escaping her life at home. She was a follower. She became whatever a man wanted her to be. She followed my dad into christianity and so it is not a far leap for her to have followed my step dad into his "religon".

I say all of that for a few reasons. If you want to find out why your grandmother may have done what she did, you may want to go back to how she grew up, ask around with other family members but TBH it doesn't really matter. It does not excuse it nor does any of mean if was your fault. She could have a handful of mental disorders and it was still her fault and still not yours.

Remember what many say on here, PTSD may br the reason but not an excuse. It is not a free pass to be abusive and we still own our own behaviors; still responsible for them. That is the same about any mental and medical disorder. It was her choice to abuse. The reasons don't matter. In my opinion anyway.

 

[Pjj]

It was her choice to abuse. The reasons don't matter. In my opinion anyway.

For me I am just discovering self compassion and re-parenting, I guess for me non- family abusers is easier in a sense but my pleas for help were never heard nor believed so I think knowing which of my behaviours Ro discard as they belong to the abuse and which to cherish are more important than the why. My psych as part of trauma recovery says what would the adult me say to the child me. The other exercise is what would the child me want to do right now. I found this very useful.

Your happiness now is what matters!

 

[Upside Down Eagle]

Perhaps she was trying not to give a ... on purpose, as a way to ignore what was going on in your life and in the life of her children? I mean, pretending that you don´t care about anything is usually indicative that you DO care but try really hard to blame it on others and then convince yourself that you are a hardass that has nothing to do with it.

Good luck with healing.

 

[recoveringfromptsd]

I know firsthand how easy it is focus on that one persons failings towards you, it is just not that simple, people are a product of the environment and experiences. She may have been that way because that is what she knows, as she may have been treated that way.

My point is, sometimes its all they or we know, because that's how we or they experienced life, we learn behaviors from those experiences and repeat them. This is why the abused sometimes become abusers. And what is bad about this is they/we think those behaviors are the norm because that's what we/they were taught.

So I think the answer to your question may be multipart with one part being how was she treated, abusers are often victims as well.

 

[Evenstar]

I know I will never understand the logic behind my grandmothers actions because it seems so illogical...

It sounds like your grandmother is a Narcissist (Google the symptoms and read up on it). In summary, to stay sane, you need to have NO contact with these narcissists in your life. You are used by them as narcissistic supply. Good luck!

 

[ladee]

Like @shimmerz shared, I didn't really want to 'understand', because that meant i would have to be like them. There are so many stories here of how others stole our self worth, left invisible wounds, and left us in the end, abandoned, to figure out how to live. Yet I do understand that you want to make some sense of it... you may or may not accomplish that... but there is nothing to forgive yourself for as I see it.... unless it's like how I feel about the sperm donar.... I felt for a long time I had to forgive him, to move on, no, indifference works for me just fine.... I do believe in Karma, so he is paying his own price... with or without my forgiveness....
Hope you find what you are searching for....

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Fadeaway,
Your grandmother sounds like my mother, a narcissist. She was like you describe.

Understanding that my mother was a narcissist helped in some ways. I learned that it wasn't about anything I did or said that made her act and react the way she did. She had a problem and I couldn't change her interactions with me. Period. That helped me a lot because I could drop all the "what ifs" in my head and move on with that part of my healing. There was nothing I could've done to behave or act different to make her behave differently. I was not to blame.

As one therapist I had said, "You've got to treat them (my whole family) like they're senile." That helped me immensely.

 

[Pjj]

Yeah, I know, my mother was too narcissistic to notice my abuse. I am now nearly 5O and have finally reconciled. The silver lining to my latest crises is that she has accepted and respects me and I have moved on enough not to blame her ignoring me but to simply blame my abusers.

Just a different perspective and one that suggests over time things can change. My first step was peace at all costs and not to react. If the conversation got too heavy I would politely leave and finally little by little let her back into my life, withdrawing again when she fails to accept my boundaries.

Hope that this helps