The journey begins ... or continues ... articulating the rollercoaster that is my life

[mumstheword]

Catching up -
You are amazing.

Also....
IDK if this helps you....

Often when I feel like my parents didn't give a shit, I start blaming myself. I start thinking I wasn't good enough, that it must have been me, that I didn't make them love me enough..

Your mum is a borderline abusive narcissistic wacko and your dad doesn't sound completely, irredeemably terrible but does sound like he's got a lot to answer for (and his head firmly up his are, but I digress.)

Your parents abandoned you, neglected you, allowed you to be abused and abused you in your mother's case.

There is nothing, nothing that justifies that. There is nothing that deserves that.

As for shagging derros.... I'd hi-five you but I kinda don't want to know where either of our hands have been :p

Abuse doesn't add up as isolated incidents. It multiplies.

I am so very, very sorry you went through all of that.

You didn't "allow yourself" to be used. People used you. A choice you can't choose, ie not being used, isn't a choice at all. If it's raining and you're stuck outside without an umbrella, you don't "allow yourself" to get wet..... It's f*cking raining.

And.... Who the f*ck are these creeps that run places where kids and vulnerable people are abused and used and tortured by other creeps? Can I end them?


It makes me really sad reading your story. A colossal sidetrack but I watched a doco called "After the Apology" last night.

If one person had been the kind of mum you are to your kids, your life would have been different. If one person had stepped the f*ck up, most of this wouldn't have happened to you. You wouldn't have twenty years of abuse and bullshit at the hands of your ex for example.

I just want to go back in time and be that person for you.

Thanks @Swift :) I used to entirely blame myself. I think that's why I ended up with someone so pathological, for so long. Even my dad admitted my ex is a sociopath.

I learnt, during that time though, that I was worthy of love, even though no one was caring for me. By the end of the 20 years, I sort of realized, in my words, that "I wasn't that bad." . When I met my current guy friend, I was used to caring for others and not being cared about, but he was different. He was like me.
I should say "actively" being cared about, coz I'm sure my kids and my dad do care, but they weren't capable of doing anything to help me.
My dad is pretty severely psychosocially disabled, with his particular brand of Aspergers and my kids were kids, who also had to survive hell, they are still in it.
So all my life I'd been used to such callous and pathologically selfish treatment. One day I looked in the mirror and thought, " I'm not that bad, surely I can do better than this.". Things had been really terrible for me, for a really long time. So now I think I believe the people who think I'm kinda awesome. Coz I survived all that, and I did it all for love.:)

 

[mumstheword]

I just had a big, solo walk and a rage-purge.
Mostly at my mum, my grandmothers a little, also, at my guy's violent borderline ex (the one who assaulted me and made his life hell for many, many years) and my borderline neighbor (surely that's what it is? coz of behaviour and we should both know, coz of years of intimate and close contact with untreated borderline personality disordered individuals) . A little at my ex too. I was going to write my rage out but I'm weary after the ragefest walk.

I'm so weary of people like that.

My mum rang my dad up the other day. Acting all nicey, nicey, as if she hadn't been dirty at him for "siding with me". Typical. That's so her go. Pretend everything's fine after being all pissy and down on you and behaving in a toxic manner.
She rang him on the day before he was due to leave, inviting him to visit her. Said she wishes "things were different with me", but won't and doesn't put any effort into making them so.
I honestly don't mind one way or another, if I never see her again. I would if she got treatment, but, I'm sooooo tired of the untreated borderline rollercoaster. So, so tired of it.
It has hurt me for more years than I care to remember.
I know now, why my dad is all soft and gooey and overly tolerant of her arseholery. She was his first. That's right, she popped his cherry. So yeah; sex.
Loss of virginity might make a person feel a special fondness for another and make allowances for their shitty behaviour. Although it's more likely that he's a bit intimidated by her, because she's an abusive bitch and he's a giant pussy and pushover and major cuck.
I hated the way he would say "be good for your mother." and yet never stand up for me. I hate the way he still replies with a pat answer, everytime I talk about my problems with her "She's had a hard life". For f*ck's sake, she's hardly worked a day in her life, she owns a massive property with a mountain and a beautiful creek running through it and she just became a wealthy heiress. Get over yourself dad. She manipulates and is narcissistic. Stop making excuses for her! You belittle me with that! That have I had? An easy run? How come I'm not a selfish, irresponsible ignorant arsehole? Cos I choose to get treatment, to own up to my problems, to treat my children with dignity, instead of treating them as my own personal toxic waste dump . I'm purging. This is more of my own toxic purging. I WILL NOT dump on my kids. So dad, your constant making excuses for the woman is an insult to your daughter who spent years being abused and neglected by her and being exposed to, and abused by, other violent and sick individuals because of her. Because of her, narcissistic abuse was my normal for thirty seven years. Being close to not being here and ignored and abused during that, was my normal and expected. Being treated as a slave was my normal. Being impoverished and trapped and isolated was my normal. Being insulted and mocked on a daily basis was my normal. Being raped and expecting no care was my normal. Having no agency was my normal. Being terribly ill and callously mocked and abused and left to maybe die, but who cares? was my normal. Being blamed for everything was my normal. Being encouraged to hate myself and think I was disgusting was my normal. Being gaslit was my normal. Thinking I wasn't being abused until I nearly died was what I had learnt, because abuse and neglect was my normal.
f*ck you guys.

Dad, you are still a cucky f*cker to my horrid mum.

Mum, f*ck you, I don't want to know you until you have been in treatment for your personality disorder for a few years and then, only if you are owning your shit, being real, being honest and demonstrating integrity and responsibility, otherwise, forget it. I've had enough. Grow the f*ck up. You haven't had anywhere near the shit I've had to deal with, from what I know of your life. You even had a loving carer, in the form of your live-in grandmother. You told me, so dad's excuses for you won't wash anymore, they just piss me off.

 

[mumstheword]

Woah, just scared the living shit out of myself. I thought my guy said he was nearly done working and heading home, about 2.5 hours ago. It's night here, the road he needs to drive home on is very windy and treacherous and its very wet at the moment. I started freaking that he's had an accident, couldn't get through to him for hours. Tried and tried again to ring.
I have this thing where I can't quite believe how good my life is right now. I'm just not used to life being so beautiful and not miserable, so, in my mind, half of me is waiting for it to come crashing down around me. I was so frightened that he d had a car accident. But I finally got through, he's still working, not quite sure why, but it's not that unusual for him to work late. He's doing removalist work, only casual and it's not that regular, but he enjoys it and his boss is great.
I was making myself sick with worry.
I just want this to last forever, we love each so, so much. I get so scared at the inevitability of losing this relationship one day, either he or I will go first, so I have to embrace and enjoy every moment of it.
I cried when I finally got through. I just want him to come home to me.
That was horrible.

 

[mumstheword]

He's home! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

 

[Freida]

Holy crap!
Look at you go!
wow!
I'm so very excited for you to get all of that out. That's a shit ton of poisen to carry around for so very long. Now you have let it out into the light of day and it can start to shrivel up and die. (hmmm Note to self - that's how it's supposed to work huh?)
And very happy your guy is home safe and sound. I get constant waiting for the other shoe to drop... when life is too good it gets scary. Then your guy gets home and it's better :hug:

 

[mumstheword]

Still all churned up today. I kinda lost my shit at my guy when he told me he'd been at the pub for two hours and not working at all.

To be fair, they had a really horrible job, cleaning up a severely disabled person's very stinky room. Both he and his boss lost lunch over it. The smell was so bad it turned their stomach's.

So they went to the pub for a couple of well earned beers.

My guy's phone failed us.

But I had such a miserable, scared evening, I couldn't let it go very easily. Have decided to expect lateness and that way, if he isn't, I will be pleasantly surprised, instead of paranoid and frightened out of my wit's.

Yes, we fought a bit, but it's over now.

He's working again today.

His ex is writing abuse, wiggy, symptomatic texts again. His youngest son has moved in with his mum and she's feel very vindicated and righteous and accusatory (turning things around, accusing him of her crimes, again). Well, it's to be expected, she has untreated bpd. Now he has the fun times of having to watch his son trying to work and study while living with his very unstable and malignant mum (his son just scored a electrical engineering apprenticeship).

She's kinda worse than my ex is now, she's gotten away with a lot more (in some ways, although she lost care of both their boys due to her unhinged and unwell behaviour for 8 years) , so cocky and full of herself, coz somehow their son living with her again (at the ripe age of 20) means she's gained an upper hand and a win against his dad. Somehow that "proves" that "it was all lies" that she lost care of the boys over (yeah, HER chronic dishonesty and maligning and dramas and negativity) but, no, she is "faultless" always.

It really reminds me of my mum, another so-far-up,her-own-arse-untreated bpd person.

It's like Jung says, we all have to own our own shadow, take responsibility and stop living in denial, to individuate and mature into being our authentic and healthy selves.

My shadow is a lot about boundaries. Not having had good ones for years and years. Getting lost in other people's pathologies. Being so demoralized, I treated myself as if I had no merit, other than how I could accomodate other's, other's who treated me atrociously. And all this anger and resentment! It's toxic.

I was all about forgiveness and tolerance but it was conditional on me having to negate and deny myself any rights or consideration. How else could I function and survive?

I did fight back though, eventually, and was terribly maligned for acting as if I, and my feelings, and health and wellbeing, mattered. It was dangerous and severely punished and punishable.

I must understand, I am of no consequence, other than to serve the needs of other's.

I'm not a very good slave though. I suck as a slave.

I'm willful and stubborn and unwilling to make it easy for those enslaving me.
They were terrible negligent slave owner's. No wonder their slave rebelled. No wonder she is angry now and unwilling to let them in her life again.
My rebel self is feisty, in a mostly quiet and dignified way, but sometimes ranty and passionate and self righteous way. . She is a stick-her-heels-in type. She is learning to stand her ground. She is employing anger to give her energy to do this, and there is no shortage of that, because it wasn't allowed and had to go underground, for so long.

I have a deep well of steely indignation.

I don't like having to feel like this, but it seems necessary, for survival, for protection, for defense, for defending my liberty, sanctity, sovereignty and wellbeing.

Those who seek to usurp my agency, to manipulate me, to denigrate me, to try to hoodwink me out of my rightful freedoms and right to life and wellbeing, can just f*ck RIGHT OFF.

I don't care who you are, you don't and won't and can't control me. I own myself. I think for myself. I rule myself and not anybody else and I reserve the right to be sovereign, as each soul, who operates in integrity, needs to do.

I am not ruled by the bodies needs, although I need to respect my body as it is my most precious thing, that I own. The only thing I truly own is this vessel, this temple of mine own Whole(y) Spirit.

I am not ruled by my thoughts, they come and go like clouds, I am.influenced by them though, and must choose which ones to protect myself from and which ones to bask in, to garden in and to harness for growth, for nourishment and for energy.

My emotions are my inner weather. They may buffer me about, burn me, freeze me and delight me, or terrorise me, overpower me and flood me, but they are mine to own and harness, to motivate me and to entrance me. They are mine to just allow to be and move through and touch me, too.

I am the integrity of my collective parts.

I am the consciousness and the will and intent behind the eyes and I AM the experiencer, experiencing, ongoing and enduring, questing and discovering, re-covering and re-membering and I AM the sum of my parts.

 

[mumstheword]

So who is this ex-slave? Has Linetta Ray (my deep southern Christian "alter" (and I read that 'alter' is just a shortened version of "altered states of consciousness", so it's the correct term, here) been.talking to Nyah? My Ras Empress alter?
I never made the "ex-slave" connection with Linetta Ray before. She is pretty placid. A biddable soul, loves Christ, cooking, eating, singing ... I know she must have wounds, deep wounds, but she keeps them hidden from me. She is black and from a time past, so I think she must have lived through full on slavery.

She showed herself when I was still with my ratbag of a babydada.
Gave me her name and some info on.herself, but she doesn't say much.
I think her eating is/was a protection and a sign of her wounds. I think she went very hungry as a child. I know I did, at times.
She is rather obese. I, however have lost quite a bit of weight and then gained a bit back, but not like I was.
I am going to embark on another reducing phase, pretty shortly.

She is fairly accepting, of her lot. A simple and meek, quite tranquil alter, but I know she hides deep wounds. Not only is she black, she's also mysterious.

I don't profess to understand much about this phenomenon, other than.to report it. I'm also aware of how incredibly unPC it is to report the existance of a different racial alter. I have two. Linetta Ray and the Rasta "Empress" NyahInIJahJahLove. She is from the diaspora. She has a guide, the Spirit of Nyahbingi. I have seen this dancing very tall, regal, warrior African Queen in a vision quest.
I don't claim to have "made up" either of them, and none of this is stuff I talk about, for the most part.
Yes, it's embarrassing and "crazy" sounding and a lot less socially acceptable than the cross gender identity disorder stuff.
But it's very real to me. It's parts that make up my inner experiences, inner being and ways of viewing and living in the world.

My inner guy, little D, is very white, almost a nationalist, but not a racist, just not going to buy into "white guilt" anymore.

My inner witch, Baba Yaga, is anti-christianity, so she and Linetta are at odds over that. She's relatively unmelonin pigmented too. But very Nature and shamanic and more at home in the forest than around people. She's a bit of a hermit.
I have to let her live in my inner forest. Then she's as happy as a pig in mud.
Luckily, my home is nestled in trees and looks out over forested mountains and I am having to stay in, not be social, to keep her happy.

Linetta lives in a country church that has a big kitchen and lush green surrounds. She likes to sing gospel and the blues and is quite jazzy and folk too. Loves devotional music and music with soul. She's pretty unhappy I stopped singing in the (RL) choir, but understands. She's very shy, and so the thought of coming out, and singing solo and lead, terrifies her. Must work through this with her, if my music career is to have any chances of restarting.
She is timid, underconfident and knows that complying is survival, so I don't know where this "Feisty ex slave" fits in.
Hhhhmmmm. A mystery to be solved.
Who are you, feisty ex slave? I am you. I am survival. I am your Soul Rebel leader. I am the Alpha, the Omega, the Charge, the Warrior. Leader of the Fray. I am your protecter.
This doesn't feel feminine though. I see a slender man of African racial appearance in my mind's eye.
He is a warrior. A defender of his Queen.
Hmmmmm. Interesting.
And no I'm not appropriating. This is genuine psychic experience. I don't under or innerstand it myself. Just reporting what I'm feeling and what's appearing in my inner vision. My third eye sight. Weird right?

 

[Freida]

I'm willful and stubborn and unwilling to make it easy for those enslaving me.
They were terrible negligent slave owner's. No wonder their slave rebelled. No wonder she is angry now and unwilling to let them in her life again.
My rebel self is feisty, in a mostly quiet and dignified way, but sometimes ranty and passionate and self righteous way. . She is a stick-her-heels-in type. She is learning to stand her ground. She is employing anger to give her energy to do this, and there is no shortage of that, because it wasn't allowed and had to go underground, for so long.

I LOVE THIS!!!

She's relatively unmelonin pigmented too

That was just on a tv show recently!

I'm also aware of how incredibly unPC it is to report the existance of a different racial alter

I don't think that it's a bad thing. Skin color doesn't make who you are (says the privileged white woman but still)
There are amazing people out there of all races and even more who are made up of bits of the best of all of them. If you have different racial alters it is because of who they are on the inside - not the outer shell.

And no I'm not appropriating. This is genuine psychic experience. I don't under or innerstand it myself. Just reporting what I'm feeling and what's appearing in my inner vision. My third eye sight. Weird right?

Nope. Not weird. Inspiring.

 

[mumstheword]

I'm feeling the heaviness of grief and loss today.
I freaked out badly last night. I think I stressed out so badly, I hurt my brain and my nervous system, a little.Today was mostly a write off.
I think I was just reacting from too much, or at least, an awful lot, of loss, that I've experienced, throughout my life.
I'm still reeling from a lot of it.
My brain went to "of course I'll lose my darling, I've lost most everything else in my.life haven't I?"
Not my youngest, he's still around, still insisting his brain "is more sociopathic than most people" (an actual quote from just a couple of days ago).
And yet there are plenty of people who've lost more than I have.
Or who never had it in the first place.

Like me, with no female comfort, only misery and fear, and shock and horror, with crumbs of sporadic attention, leaving me always hungry and never satisfied.
I viscerally connected my relationship with food with how I've coped with the mum stuff. First, consuming food was comfort, then it was shame, then it became a thing to deny myself, so I could show how much I hurt inside. Then the backlash, I became so hungry! Then.it became comfort again, then shame again, and now I just try to nurture and sustain and sometimes distract with food, but I am mostly ok and healthy about it.

I used to use eating to shame myself with, to be garbage and be the refuse dumping ground. My mother would bully me and so I learnt to bully myself with or by denying myself food. I wished that I could disappear. But babies grew inside me and I couldn't starve them too, although I think my second born was starved (malnourished) in the womb, and that's part of why he was a "failure-to-thrive baby. I had tried to escape his father, before I got pregnant with him, but I got trapped, because I already had one baby, and no where to go. I tried to leave. I wondered around far north Queensland, homeless, with a baby boy, when I was only 18, but I had no where to go, I had no one, so I had to go find his dad and then, I got pregnant again, and I was so broken and miserable and ill and lost and trapped, trapped, trapped. Oh well, that's life.

 

[Swift]

I know it's terribly unPC to say your mum is a..... See you next Tuesday, but i just did it.

I dunno if this helps you... But when I found out I had DID I was like "holy shit, what if one of us is a racist?"...
Or, what if I have a racially diverse alter?
I take race and race politics pretty seriously and spend a damn lot of my time trying not to be racist....

Here's the thing. I don't think you get a choice about who your alters are. And I don't think it's the same thing as cultural appropriation or racism, and I consider myself pretty woke about these things despite my white privilege. I read a lot and I run in a lot of activist circles.

I did some reading so if you want The Science, here goes, but if it doesn't help you obvs take or leave it.

Alters form from internal need. Often alters have different characteristics than the host or the core does - because these characteristics are either a) protective, like in the case of a male alter for an AFAB person (ie woman or girl usually), or b) that alters are generated not by our conscious, super-woke frontal lobes, but the back of our brains because our critical reasoning shuts off in trauma. Also, there's a chronological element - when these parts came about, you didn't know what you know now about race.

So the philosophical angle is "can a dream state, dissociative state phenomenon be morally wrong in the way that we judge a fully aware phenomenon? "
And I think the answer is no.

I have an internal misogynistic homophobe - his name is Jack and he's twelve. I was journalling to him, being like, hey Max has offered to hang out and meet you if you like, and he replied "he sounds like a f*cking faggot"..... Which is a word I never use even in my own head. I told Max who thought it was hilarious - I think it's pretty funny too.

So yeah. That's my answer to the question of "does having an alter of a different race make me a racist?" which you probs didn't ask, but I don't think it's something you have to feel bad about.

Great rant about your mum.
Trauma is like an infected, pussy wound - cleaning it out is messy and it stinks but yeah. It's healing.

 

[Freida]

wondered around far north Queensland, homeless, with a baby boy, when I was only 18, but I had no where to go, I had no one, so I had to go find his dad and then, I got pregnant again, and I was so broken and miserable and ill and lost and trapped, trapped, trapped.

This is so very, very sad. I can't even imagine what this looks like. No one should have to be in this position - EVER.

Oh well, that's life

NO. What you are living now is life. What you were living then was survival. Plain and simple.

 

[mumstheword]

The

I know it's terribly unPC to say your mum is a..... See you next Tuesday, but i just did it.

I dunno if this helps you... But when I found out I had DID I was like "holy shit, what if one of us is a racist?"...
Or, what if I have a racially diverse alter?
I take race and race politics pretty seriously and spend a damn lot of my time trying not to be racist....

Here's the thing. I don't think you get a choice about who your alters are. And I don't think it's the same thing as cultural appropriation or racism, and I consider myself pretty woke about these things despite my white privilege. I read a lot and I run in a lot of activist circles.

I did some reading so if you want The Science, here goes, but if it doesn't help you obvs take or leave it.

Alters form from internal need. Often alters have different characteristics than the host or the core does - because these characteristics are either a) protective, like in the case of a male alter for an AFAB person (ie woman or girl usually), or b) that alters are generated not by our conscious, super-woke frontal lobes, but the back of our brains because our critical reasoning shuts off in trauma. Also, there's a chronological element - when these parts came about, you didn't know what you know now about race.

So the philosophical angle is "can a dream state, dissociative state phenomenon be morally wrong in the way that we judge a fully aware phenomenon? "
And I think the answer is no.

I have an internal misogynistic homophobe - his name is Jack and he's twelve. I was journalling to him, being like, hey Max has offered to hang out and meet you if you like, and he replied "he sounds like a f*cking faggot"..... Which is a word I never use even in my own head. I told Max who thought it was hilarious - I think it's pretty funny too.

So yeah. That's my answer to the question of "does having an alter of a different race make me a racist?" which you probs didn't ask, but I don't think it's something you have to feel bad about.

Great rant about your mum.
Trauma is like an infected, pussy wound - cleaning it out is messy and it stinks but yeah. It's healing.

I've never thought I was racist, except I used to be. I was a "positive discriminator". I worked in reggae for a very long time. I worked with a lot of not white people. I admired them. I had huge respect for them.
I used to participate in a Rasta forum, it was run by a white Ras but it was multicultural religious talk. I eventually, after a couple of years, stopped. I couldn't handle the discrimination against me coz of my colour. Our Religious Leader, His Imperial Majesty Haille Selassie, preached against discrimination on the basis of skin colour. We were adopted as "Skin family", by our indiginous bros, who we used to do "Reggae Coroboree"s" with, they used to do the traditional culture bit; sharing dances and songs in language, (they are of the Nunakal people of Stradbroke, their grandmother was Oogeroo, Cath Walker, the poet and activist and their father was Dennis Walker). I was called "Bungi" which is sister-in-law, we played original aussie reggae, and my ex is of Native American descent , he is a bit of a "tribal" kind of guy, we sang songs about respecting indigenous cultures. It was the reason I joined the band, that and the environmental activism focus songs. Our aboriginal bros played reggae too, they did Bob Marley covers and such.

So, I don't know. I don't think I was brought up racist. I left school because a history teacher told me "Aboriginal people have no culture, because they wrote nothing down" and I didn't beleive it, and didn't like her attitude. We had also been totally ignorant of Aboriginal people during the Bicentennial celebrations, at my school, and I was taught "they were all wiped out" only they weren't, we had a aboriginal girl in my class. I was horrified. This was 1986.
When I was with my ex, we did activist stuff, like a reenactment of the first fleet peeps coming to shore and them being welcomed, smoked, having welcoming ceremony and being told they can come and live here, but the guns couldn't. This was all conducted by aboriginal people.
So, I don't know. I don't think I'm a racist. I haven't really had a very "white privilege" type life, but then, at the same time, I have.
I ended up breaking ties with my Aboriginal family, it's complicated. There are plenty of deeply traumatized people and it's sad, and trauma repeat stuff is frequent. My family is also rife with the DV and drug addictions and such, both "black" "white" and well, my kids are mixed, Native American and white and I'm not sure if there is Aboriginal in their Dad's side too. They want to do DNA test stuff to find out more.
I am somewhat, but not entirely estranged from everyone. But I have respect and am respected by lots of different people of different cultures, but I'm more a hermit, these days.
I always live around a lot of indigenous people and we are all ok to each other, mostly good.
You would have to meet me to get me, I think. I have lived a very eclectic, unconventional life, mixing with diverse peoples all my life.
I remain on the fringes of everything.