Invalidation: The Root Of All Evil?

[maddog]

Thanks so much for the responses, I haven't spoken about this before on this forum, for some reason it's somewhere I haven't really been able to go yet. Still not sure I can really...

I cut off contact with my parents permanently in March 2011. Until that time, the truth of our childhood had never been openly confronted by anyone in my family. My actions triggered an intense meltdown in my brother as well, which has seen him come close to suicide, become repeatedly physically and verbally abusive towards me (he was formerly one of the most even tempered and rational people I knew) and has almost, and may yet, cost him his marriage and his children.

He blames me for everything... at least some of the time he does, perhaps because it's easiest, perhaps because I was the trigger for his world falling apart, perhaps for some other reason. Somehow he has chosen a human embodiment of all of the evil we experienced, and that human embodiment is me.

My parents have been emotionally and logistically blackmailing him by financial means for years now and have facilitated his current lifestyle, a lifestyle he believes his family cannot be without.

He said he had to make a choice... and he made it.

I wish I could feel anger. Hell, I always wish I could feel anger, but somehow I never can.

I don't even know how to name the emotion that lives in me right now.

Maddog

 

[Tinyflame]

I understand md, somewhere when it's based on 'only money' it's bad but to some degree impersonal, one can equate it to other's lifestyle needs, addictions whatever- they 'need' the money.

But when one becomes the source of blame- is verbally told so, verbally and or physically abused, +/ or one's (physical) existence is invalidated- one becomes the reason for blame and hatred- I have yet to find a way or reason that over-rides that reality. Certainly seems to crush any hope or belief that relationships or one's worth, exists.

It's hard to believe this is what they call 'family', takes much out of life/ options.
I'm sorry this is not useful, I hear you though.

 

[Tinyflame]

It's like the person goes to such ends to make you pay or cause you hurt or tell you you are worthless/ the burden.

 

[Stir Ling]

My parents have been emotionally and logistically blackmailing him by financial means for years now and have facilitated his current lifestyle, a lifestyle he believes his family cannot be without.
Maddog

I used to fear being "cut out" of my inheritance if I spoke up (about physical abuse and alcoholism). My mother used to tell me that I'd be a millionaire when she died, and my father used to claim that he had a huge insurance policy out on himself. He also threw around the word millionaire. The concept fascinated me--it seemed dreamlike. It also used to fill me with tremendous anxiety. (Similar to the kind I'd feel whenever my mother told me that I'd never be allowed back in her house if I ever ran away.)

I got past a lot of this by doing some simple math. It turns out that my parents inflated themselves. They spoke from a sense of grandiosity to a child who understood nothing about money. It turns out that they are not very wealthy at all. There's nothing to leave the kids except some property that has sentimental value. Even if there is "secret money" stashed somewhere, I've come to realize this: I am better off without them. They are not interested in my health or well-being. Why would they be interested in making me wealthy?

Your brother, maddog, is afraid. He's speaking and acting out of fear. His action tells you something quite blunt: you are better off without him. Even if you are suffering financially and having difficulty paying bills, you would only make yourself more ill by trying to manage your brother's very obvious paradox. It hurts to have him turn on you, as we all wish for community, family, love. It's sad that he's incapable of love. I hope the money he inherits helps heal him.

 

[ms spock]

I would like to move home someday. And hopefully spend time with my siblings (who all live near my parents). Or perhaps I should just move on, "cut them loose" so to speak.

How long until your parents die? I am not saying, go and kill them or anything, but if they are going to fall of the perch soon, then it will give you ample time with your siblings.

My actions triggered an intense meltdown in my brother as well, which has seen him come close to suicide, become repeatedly physically and verbally abusive towards me (he was formerly one of the most even tempered and rational people I knew) and has almost, and may yet, cost him his marriage and his children.

Your actions didn't trigger anything that wasn't already so close to the surface that it was about to pop anyway.

He blames me for everything... at least some of the time he does, perhaps because it's easiest, perhaps because I was the trigger for his world falling apart, perhaps for some other reason. Somehow he has chosen a human embodiment of all of the evil we experienced, and that human embodiment is me.

The one who speaks the truth is for some reason is vilified. The whistleblower has a very strange place to occupy in our cultures.

Two of my sisters blame me for everything - their bad feelings - fear that they might become abusers etc etc etc. Screamed the living guts out at me shortly before a Xmas. The abuse was not the problem - it was SPEAKING about the abuse that makes every one so angry, which I suspect is deflected anger and all the things their hearts have yearned for not having a chance and something on another level which I can't quite grasp yet. Also I was the eldest and the scapegoat. The family garbage bin.

 

[Helliepig]

I think that often our siblings' loyalty is to the bully or to the preservation of the family dynamics; with scapegoating families the other members of the family get to pass on all the s**t to the one who is "trouble" and they need to belive it with all their might. They project their own self hatred, fear, shame etc, that they don't want to feel, onto the scapegoat and then hate them for showing those self same things.

Asking them to side with you is like breaking a huge tabboo - and means they have to start feeling their own feelings, which often makes them more aggressive and hostile and bingo.... the normal status quo has been preserved. I guess ultimately it depends on other members of the family being willing to do their own work which to be honest isn't too likely to happen if there are payoffs for not doing it....ie getting to offload their emotions onto someone else. We all know how hellish it is to face our pain, I guess most people don't want to do it unless they have to (sadly we have no choice)

I do wonder, if , when someone is healed enough,whether it would be possible to stay in the moment with someone trying to yell and scream and re-scapegoat you, and calmly and assertively keep refusing to take it back. Sometimes the dynamics are like a dance, if you don't do your part they can't complete the dance alone and that would be a powerful way of putting things back where they belong.

I do think that to make it personal, to feel it as a betrayal, is natural but is making it more painful than it already is- it isn't about your worth to this person, it's about their utter terror of breaking with the order that has been impregnated into them from birth. It takes courage to stand up to a bully and break family dynamics too, and sadly, not everyone seems to have the decency and clarity to stand up for what's right. So it helps to see these things for what they are - a bigger picture of often multigenerational dynamics that we have been unwittingly involved in, the dynamics of which are often more powerful than individual choice or will. It isn't really about someone choosing THEM over YOU, it's about survival and fear and weakness.

I am currently wrestling with the issue of staying away for ever from the family - i think whilst you are healing it is wise, and up to press I could not bear to think of going anywhere near them. Now, however, something in me is wondering whether it would be more healthy for me, more beneficial to my healing, to find SOME way to relate, in a new, abeit imperfect way. That it somehow is about acceptance somehow, something about not denying the past, something about no longer being a victim.

That staying away somehow creates some knock on effect inside you and to your future relationships. I read this somewhere, years ago, and now I am beginning to get a sense that it might be true. I'd be interested in other peoples' viewpoints on this...

 

[Helliepig]

If someone complains to you with great sadness about the rain at their cricket match and you show empathy - after awhile the conversation shifts deeper and then you hear the heartbreak about a sick child or so forth.

Some people need to have lots and lots of "shallow" conversations before they trust other people.

This is really good.

I think when we're in therapy we forget that we are practised and "comfortable" with opening up and discussing things, that we are practised at thinking about how we feel and we have lots of things we have read that help us to understand how emotions, defences etc, work. So many people have no understanding of any of this - I look back to when I first started therapy - and often have no words or permissions to discuss these things. They have never experienced the "luxury" of having someone like a therapist listen attentively to them. It is an unknown world.

Lots of people are also adept at putting on a front, denying and pretending. It's too easy for us to see our broken insides and compare them to the intact front of someone else -without knowing what's behind their front. Maybe they fear deep conversations because it takes them to a place they dare not go to.

 

[maddog]

Now, however, something in me is wondering whether it would be more healthy for me, more beneficial to my healing, to find SOME way to relate, in a new, abeit imperfect way. That it somehow is about acceptance somehow, something about not denying the past, something about no longer being a victim.

That staying away somehow creates some knock on effect inside you and to your future relationships. I read this somewhere, years ago, and now I am beginning to get a sense that it might be true. I'd be interested in other peoples' viewpoints on this...

I saw your mention of this issue on your diary and meant to respond earlier...

I do believe that human relationships are not static, but rather they are fluid, ever changing and evolving as we do and as our beliefs, attitudes, morals, preferences, priorities etc change over time. In that sense, it seems logical that what is right at one point in time in terms of a relationship may no longer be the most appropriate as we move through to another phase of life and as the other person does likewise. We only have to look at the divorce rate to realise that peoples' relationships with one another change with time, in ways which we often find inconceivable at a prior point in that relationship.

Somehow, it makes a kind of sense to me, theoretically at least, that any involvement with a toxic relationship that is inextricably linked to trauma memories, can only be of detriment during the "healing" phase, or the phases of the journey at which the traumatic memories are most raw and most interfering with our ability to function and to create and sustain healthier concepts of ourselves.

And similarly, it seems logical that the impact of these toxic relationships will be less detrimental when that phase is behind us and once we have achieved a degree of stable security in our own skin and in our own place within the world.

At that point, we are also likely to be in a better position to no longer take the blame and scapegoating as you said, and to be able to establish and enforce healthy boundaries that we may never have been able to previously. At that point, when we have the ability to, in effect, filter out a lot of the negative, perhaps there may even be the capacity to absorb something positive from such a relationship... I imagine it would vastly differ in each case.

Incidentally, I often imagine that "giving it back to them" stuff, in a form of the revenge fantasies that I often entertain. Imagining a day on which I might stand up to my family and refuse to accept or be impacted by their blame and condemnation fills me with both inspiration and despair... clearly I am a long way from that place right now.

Truly, I think there is only one rule - never say never. I vividly remember T saying this to me when we first began discussions around cutting off members of my family. His view was very strongly that we can only act for the here and now and be receptive to the evolution of relationships and the human condition generally, and I try to remember that, I try to hang onto it, sometimes, when I can.

In the case of my parents, I doubt there will ever be any going back, but who knows. I would like to believe it is not only possible in some situations, but also potentially rewarding and enriching.

I do believe it's a decision that requires the use of both pragmatism and instinct, and preferably careful discussion with someone who knows you and your situation well enough and objectively enough to offer useful insight.

You have clearly slogged a long way through your journey H... maybe now *is* the time for you to begin asking that question.

A very interesting discussion.

Maddog

 

[ms spock]

I think when we're in therapy we forget that we are practised and "comfortable" with opening up and discussing things, that we are practised at thinking about how we feel and we have lots of things we have read that help us to understand how emotions, defences etc, work. So many people have no understanding of any of this

And it is really scary when someone speaks from their heart and you have never seen or heard of this before.

Lots of people are also adept at putting on a front, denying and pretending. It's too easy for us to see our broken insides and compare them to the intact front of someone else -without knowing what's behind their front. Maybe they fear deep conversations because it takes them to a place they dare not go to.

Comparisons are rarely helpful (yes I am a hypocrite) because we often don't have all the data.

I think that often our siblings' loyalty is to the bully or to the preservation of the family dynamics; with scapegoating families the other members of the family get to pass on all the s**t to the one who is "trouble" and they need to belive it with all their might. They project their own self hatred, fear, shame etc, that they don't want to feel, onto the scapegoat and then hate them for showing those self same things.

And most importantly they have seen what has happened to the scapegoat - they are terrified that they might become the scapegoat. That deep seated and unconscious terror and fear is something that the person in the dynamic is often not aware of and really start and tend to fall apart when it comes to the surface. They are some absolutely huge and enormous and totally overwhelming feelings. Often coming from a child point of view as they have been unable to process as a child. So they are stuck at various development stages.

Asking them to side with you is like breaking a huge tabboo - and means they have to start feeling their own feelings, which often makes them more aggressive and hostile and bingo.... the normal status quo has been preserved. I guess ultimately it depends on other members of the family being willing to do their own work which to be honest isn't too likely to happen if there are payoffs for not doing it....ie getting to offload their emotions onto someone else. We all know how hellish it is to face our pain, I guess most people don't want to do it unless they have to (sadly we have no choice)

It is a huge taboo and there is an intergenerational aspect to do with maintaining the passing up and down the family tree.

The feelings that children who are are now adults - they are facing the fear of death feelings - the way did no one love me to protect me feelings - the absolute terror of what is going to happen today - the magical thinking that they are saving someone in their family if they go along with main abuser.

This is not easy stuff to deal with. It is not easy to sit with at all.

So it is not a decision based on any rational thinking or feelings. It comes from that small, needy, terrified, frozen, petrified child state stuck at some developmental stage.

So there is no choice in these situations - there is the reptilian brain = which is in the flight, fright or freeze mode has decided that avoiding death is the major priority.

In the case of my parents, I doubt there will ever be any going back, but who knows. I would like to believe it is not only possible in some situations, but also potentially rewarding and enriching.

I do believe it's a decision that requires the use of both pragmatism and instinct, and preferably careful discussion with someone who knows you and your situation well enough and objectively enough to offer useful insight.

A very interesting discussion.

Personally I maintain a zero tolerance of abusive biological family members.

Just say NO! to abusive family members.

There is one sister that is a possibility but it has just taken her seven years to realise that maybe she did something wrong. (She writes cards and I don't respond.)

*assumes a military position*

Just say No!

*continues to vigilantly maintain a zero tolerance of abusive family members*

 

[workingwithc-ptsd]

How long until your parents die? I am not saying, go and kill them or anything, but if they are going to fall of the perch soon, then it will give you ample time with your siblings.

Hi Ms. Spock, Yes, they are getting old. I know if either one of them passed away, I wouldn't attend the funeral. That won't go over well with my siblings, I guess. I am 39 and trying to start my own family. I think making my own is the best way to have a family. But I am starting late, and I have a lot of fears connected to pregnancy and motherhood. I want to move forward and not look back anymore. I have a wonderful spouse. I just have to get my courage up. :-)

 

[bankhead]

working - I married at 39 and had my only child soon afterward. His life is a great blessing in countless ways.

 

[workingwithc-ptsd]

I married at 39 and had my only child soon afterward. His life is a great blessing.

Thanks bankhead! I am glad to hear this. It seems like I have always been afraid as I have entered each stage of my life. I stuck to what was familiar, even if I wasn't happy. Looking back I realize now that made it through okay. I survived. I just think it seems like making a family, having a baby, is so natural for everyone else. But even though I am afraid, what I do know is that if I had a baby I would do everything to give that child the safety and love I didn't receive. I look forward to that.