Sometimes, it’s a struggle to go to church. I just don’t want to go because I get so anxious that I feel physically ill. I didn’t want to go today. I went anyway and said, “Well, at least I’m here, God.” I share this in hopes that others struggling with these same things will know they are not alone. Healing from growing up in an abusive home and marrying an abusive narcissist take time. Sometimes one takes two steps forward and other times, two steps back. It’s a part of the process.
I woke up thinking of my youngest. I woke up feeling like a failure. I woke up thinking about all the things my parents told me I wasn’t and all the ways they said I would fail. I thought about all the words Douchewaffle spoke to me over the years. I thought of every single one of my failures as a wife and a parent. I wondered how things would be different if I had done more, or had been a better person. Of course, this snowballed into my thinking about how I will fail in the future. I’ve worked hard the last 6 years to build a career and to be able to support myself. Yet, even after all this time, I still worry that I won’t make it on my own. When you grow up in crazy, it’s hard to get the crazy out of your head sometimes.
My mother told me she hated me more than once. This hatred was a staple of my childhood. My mother told me that I didn’t have friends because I was a bad child. She would come out of her room screaming at me — saying so many awful things that are forever in the filing cabinet of my brain. It never occurred to her that I had friends I didn’t invite over because I lived in crazyville. My father called me a whore more than once. I never understood why, but this is forever locked in my brain. My dad also told me I wouldn’t make it through Officer Candidate School or graduate from college. He told me I’d never amount to much.
In some weird way, his being so adamant that I would be a failure at OCS and college made me work harder—just to prove him wrong. He told me that he’d die angry with me, and he was true to his word. (I will always wonder if DW and WD had stayed away from the man if there would have been forgiveness and some sort of love….but I will never know, because the two douches just love to destroy lives)
While I have come to terms with how my father died angry, the shedding of light on exactly why his anger was fueled with jet fuel as he was dying of cancer, still bothers me. It is a struggle to accept that someone could hate so much that they would chose to gaslight through an old man dying from cancer. Let me rephrase my struggle, I *know* DW and WD DID those things, it’s a struggle for my brain to accept that there really are such deplorable human beings on the planet. I have been in therapy over 7 years and every session, I am told that there really are crazy narcissistic human beings out there who get off on destroying others. In some sick way, it pumps up their own egos. <vomit>
Douchewaffle told me I was psycho, told me I was a horrible mother, a horrible Christian and would often let me know that I was a horrible person just to be sure to cover all bases. Usually this occurred after he’d changed a password, locked something of mine in the safe and changed the code, crashed my computer in an attempt to disable it, or after disabling the cars so I couldn’t drive them. He used so many passive-aggressive tactics over the years that I lost track. I certainly lost my shit and yelled. It’s crazy-making when narcissistic bullies gaslight over and over again. Eventually, an atomic bomb blows up. Of course, it was never DW’s fault. He maintained he didn’t need therapy, because I was the atomic explosion and THAT was the real issue, in his mind,
When he left, DW told me that I would end up alone. He told me that the kids would remember all of my yelling at him and that they would never forgive me, and would side with him. He made it abundantly clear that he thought I was a failure and could never survive without him. I had some crazy dreams last night and woke up this morning thinking that, while they had all been wrong in the past, they could be right about things next year. As I write this tonight, I can laugh now, but this morning, I felt the weight of their words on my shoulders telling me all the horrible things they thought I am and how they thought I could never succeed. My therapist tells me that it can take years to overcome these things as one adjusts to normal life with normal people.
Life is different when you grow up in crazy. I question my sanity a lot– especially when dealing with actual crazy people. All the things the crazy people in my life told me I couldn’t do, I’ve managed to do. I’m a survivor. Yet, here I am at a crossroads doubting God again. He’s gotten me this far, and I know He won’t leave me. I just I doubt my human ability. DW told me I’d never get the house, yet God was and always will be bigger than DW. At every turn, God showed me that He was bigger than DW and yet here I am doubting AGAIN. Why on earth would God bring me this far just to let me go? Just asking that makes me realize my thoughts — satan — needs to be rebuked. God isn’t going to leave me now. I’m not going to lose my house after 6 years of working hard to keep it, avoiding bankruptcy and working hard to pay all the debt I received in the “settlement”.
“I’m tired, God,” I said as I sat in the pew. “I’m tired of the struggle in my brain! Help me.”
It seems so easy as we read our Bibles or sit in church….. so easy to remember who it is that God says you are. It’s the day to day grind, the fears of the unknown and the temptations of the devil that make it hard to remember in the outside world. I’ve been told that I’m a failure so much: that my best isn’t good enough so frequently, that my brain struggles with being positive when I start to worry about money, my job or anything else I frequently worry about.
As I sat in church, God reminded me of all the things He has done over the last 6 years and beyond. As long as I do my part, God will do His part. One of the readings at Mass today included 2 Thes 3:10 –he who is not willing to work shall not eat. What a reminder from God. I am willing to work and have been working hard to build a new life, to support myself and live debt-free. I am not worthless, I am not trash. I am enough! God thinks I am enough, so I am enough!
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I know that God will be with me no matter what, forever and always. I jut need to do my part and pray. God will do His part. I’ve got a great job, I work hard and I do my best to make ends meet. God wants me (us) to be happy. I’ve been trying to read scripture daily and to keep my focus on Him instead of all my worries. Therapy helps.
God’s got this. I just need to trust and believe. Jesus, I trust in You.
My Little Red Bike 