14 - Creepmouse and Other Stories of My Father

©Miriam A. Mason

My father used to call me "Mim," "Mim-gee," "Littlest Daughter," and sometimes "Schmerecasa 2" (my brother and sister were Schmerecase and Schmerecasa 1, respectively, note the feminine endings).  My father had a wit.  None of these sweet nicknames of affection gave any clue to the kinds of abuses my father was capable of.  But he did have a wit, for what it's worth.  Perhaps after I've cleared out the stories that first must be told, I will have more inclination to write about how that could be fun, at times, as long as you were within his parameters.  Following are a few stories of the many many in our lives.  These (and others) have stuck out.  I imagine the stories will continue to come out even after a lot of the processing has been done.  Processing comes first.

Creepmouse and Other "Play"

It's relevant to go further into the type of play my father engaged us in. My father was very rough in his physical play with my sister and myself. I was also very much smaller than both my brother and sister, who were 12 and 7 years older than myself respectively. My father used his hand, with his long nails intact, to attack us and tickle, wrestle, pounce on, as a character he called "Creepmouse." Especially with my sister and myself. If he did it with my brother, I never witnessed it.
 
It was supposed to be fun. At least that was what he (and my sister, eager for his strokes at that age) kept saying.
 
If my father had been gentle and his hand had been soft and aware of my being, creepmouse might have been a very good memory for me. But I remember creepmouse as mostly bringing pain. And pain that made me cry and made my father laugh at me as I cried.
 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/chronicpaininfo

I would get so angry I would try to attack him and he'd laugh loudly right in my face (my sister would join in because at our house it was apparently very funny to see the smallest most defenseless child in pain) and hold me away from him with his hand on my head as I tried in vain to hit him back and screamed in rage and pain. Creepmouse almost never ended well. And somehow, it was always my fault for being too sensitive.

This is gaslighting taken to the extreme, and against a child.  There really is no excuse for this other than his own emotional immaturity and inability to empathize at all with his children.  This was a huge downfall of his. 

It was one way, however, to get my father to play with me. I used to beg him to play creepmouse with me. When I was very little, I was more of an oddity, really, and he really never played with me in any other way. He read to me when he felt like it, his choice of books, not mine. That even waited until I was older, so he could read the more advanced and academic books. But my father didn't play unless it was harsh, hard, and painful, and almost always, with creepmouse. After he'd hurt me, my mother would excuse him by saying he didn't realize his own strength, so he never was to blame, never apologized, never owned it as an emotionally mature adult could. Too boot, I was told I was too sensitive, and overreacting and yes... it was all my fault because I had asked him to play with me in the first place. This is what I mean by cowardice, actually from both parents. 

Who was the adult here? There wasn't one present during any of those interactions.
 
It was a great relief to me when I learned how to play cribbage, because I could play that with my father without being assaulted in the process, and he liked it, so he'd play.
 
However his play manifested, it always was deeply competitive, an "I got you, but you can't get me back, hahaha" game. He competed regularly with his kids and wanted us to compete against neighborhood kids and relatives' kids for who knows how much about a particular topic of parental choice. 

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Latin & Catastrophizing

In an act that was for him play and for me a directive, my dad tried to force me to learn latin at 10 years old to show off to another couple of families how smart we were (not "you," but "we"). Developmentally, I was not at all ready for such a thing. Funny thing here, he also tried to get T____ M______, a neighbor boy (11), to learn it with me and T____ never showed up again to our house. I wish I had been T____! And kudos to him for getting the hell out of there as quickly as possible. More about the M______ later.
 
My father even told me outright he wanted to show me off once I learned it. Show that his kid was smarter and better than his brother's kids, or other academic's kids. And again, nothing more than extension of his desires and wishes. My interest in this particular project of his was never addressed, not for a single moment. To ask me whether I wanted to or not... well, that was simply unacceptable to do for my father. If he had asked me and I'd said no (which I'd have been terrified to say, in truth), he'd then have played the guilt card and I would have been given his full disgust and disapproval once again. (When you poke her this way, if she doesn't jump just right, she's no fun to play with. This was my continued personal experience with my father.)

 
And when he gave me an adult completely dry translation assignment and I copied it instead of translating it, and he told me I had plagiarized and that it was a crime and how bad I was for doing it. He shamed me very deeply that day, I remember it well.  The best thing he could have done that never would have occurred to him was to tell me how impressed he was I'd tracked down the English translation of the Latin book he'd given me from his library.  Nope.  No points for ingenuity there, I had broken his rules.  He also turned off any inclination I might have had to really learn another language. If he had given me the Latin and the translation and asked me to see if I could find the similarities, my brain probably could have wrapped around that one at the time, even if I hadn't enjoyed it. But that was not my father. He wanted it perfect and he assumed I would be adult in my intellectual thinking far before I was ready to do so. And he trounced on (ironically with great drama and disdain) any emotional part of me that disagreed with his ideas. 

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Toilet Paper, Dental Floss & Dangerous Bathrooms

This section may bother some people who are sensitive to bathroom issues. Please be aware before you proceed.
 
When I was young, I had physiological problems with my digestion. I still do, but they have improved once I realized what they were and worked on ways to address them. I still do struggle even now. But when I was a child, it was very hard.  I had no parenting or medical support for the physical pain I endured as a child. I either had the runs or I was uncomfortably constipated and unable to completely evacuate (this is a very common symptom of chronic mercury poisoning, for those who do not know). I spent long periods of time pushing in the bathroom to try to make myself feel better. I even gave myself a permanent fissure pushing so hard because I always needed to hurry up. I also used a lot of toilet paper because it felt necessary to clean up, or I wouldn't get clean.
 
Without fail, if my father was home, within 15 minutes of my sitting on the toilet, my father's harsh knocking and voice would be at the door, "Miriam, c'mon, you've been in there too long, get out." "Okay, Dad, I'm trying!" A few minutes go by with me trying to clean off while my bowls were half in and half out, and again the knocking, only this time, seriously angry and harsh, "C'MON MIRIAM! GET OUT. RIGHT NOW!"
 
So... dirty or clean, finished or not, I had to come out and just deal with the physical pain of not being allowed to finish. I learned to live with the feeling of continuous incomplete evacuation.
 
Blog entry #12 at school, once I was bussed to the schools in from the 4th through the 6th grades in West Berkeley, the bathrooms and toilet seats were smeared with fecal matter, and girls sat on top of the swinging doors taunting anybody who came in to use the toilets and threatening to put their heads in the toilets. I learned to hold it. It was painful every day.

There weren't any safe bathrooms for a large swath of my childhood. Not at home, and certainly not at school. I became afraid to ask friends to use their bathrooms at their house for fear I would take too long there, too. There was no place in which I could truly relax and just go.  To this day, I have my own bathroom and I hide in it, knowing nobody can kick me out of it because we have another bigger bathroom.
 
Somehow, in some fashion, my parents figured out a way to blame my bowel problems on me, as well. Something was wrong with me, it was all in my head. Doctors (who are very poor bunch overall, to be frank) concurred, never bothered to look, xray, do any motility tests, anything.  It was in my head only.  I was broken and would just have to cope in the big bad world. It never occurred to them that I might have some sort of actual physiological problem and that some mineral oil or some magnesium might help me feel a whole lot better and make things flow more easily.
 
At this stage of life, I have actual structural damage for which I will require surgery, the most of it because of being unable to relax and go to the bathroom when I was a child. How things were in the bathroom for me directly resulted in this damage. I won't go so far as to name them, but they are significant and affect my life every day. 

One day soon, it will require a highly invasive surgery that I am none too eager to have done.
 
I really do covet my own little bathroom in our house. I am very uncomfortable in institutional types of bathrooms, and in homes where people aren't respectful. I stay away from those. It's still frightening to go into a bathroom that I have no control over.
 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/GentleParentingUK

I really wish my mother and father had been empathetic and worked to find out what caused my gut pain and the terrible back and forth of my bowels when I was younger. And simple kindness would have gone such a very long way for me. 

It wasn't to be, not from my father.
 
Later, when we moved into a house with two bathrooms, my father laid claim to the big one and my mother and I were relegated to the little half bathroom, but at least I could go without being yelled at any longer. Oddly enough, even though I had been trained to not use a lot of toilet paper, our house drainage plugged up, worse than it ever had with my toilet paper of the past.
 
My father came down on me like a pile of rocks, "Miriam, you're still using too much toilet paper, we're going to have to call a plumber this time, you can't do that, the whole house is blocked, now nobody can use the bathrooms. You just can't do this any more, you can't! This is horrible and expensive and it's your fault," as he stomped away towards his study leaving my mother to contact the plumber.
 
What does the plumber find when he opens the pipes up? Dental floss. My father's dental floss. Which he had been flushing down the toilet every single day since the day we had moved in. When I found this out I looked at dad, and he looked embarrassed for himself, he expressed exactly zero regret at having blamed the entire thing on me.   In fact, he made light of it and teased me as though it was still my fault.  I was supposed to laugh at this.  Yes, I really was.  (His wit failed him profoundly at times.)

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442?id=114835348601442&sk=photos_stream

After years of abuse in this regard, I wanted him to apologize to me for once, to own that he had made an assumption about me and immediately blamed me for something that wasn't even my fault. That was never to be. It was fine he made a mistake and pulled the shame card on me full force, but he could not own it or acknowledge it. If I'd asked him to apologize, he'd have probably told me I was overreacting, taking it too seriously. And he would remind me of the past and how anything like this had always been my fault before (even though a plumber had not ever been called previously, so we don't know for a fact it wasn't his dental floss at the other house, too). Nothing like a good gaslight to attempt to throw attention and blame back on to me. My father excelled at that. And that is what I personally define as shitty parenting. 

Being unable to own one's mistakes and blaming them on another, especially someone a great deal smaller and less powerful that you are is sublime narcissism.  I am saying here and now, he can stick all that dental floss up his ass and twirl on it.

"...but what if the narcissist happens to be your mother, father, or primary care giver? A parent who manipulates a child into meeting their own emotional needs is no longer 'charismatic, charming, exasperating or downright ludicrous', but cruel and abusive; the effects of which are rarely diagnosed or treated in the children or adult children of narcissists. The symptoms of a narcissistic family system are exactly what make a diagnosis so difficult − everything seems so perfect. '
"The emotional damage done by a narcissistic parent can, in many ways, be even more devastating to the healthy ego-development of a child than overt abuse, because it is so insidious. Although many of the same symptoms occur in the client's life that stem from the incest family, the alcohol troubled family, the physically abusive family, and so forth, none of those issues were present in the narcissistic family. In fact, the family of origin seems to have functioned quite well —at least on the surface. Like 'a shiny red apple with a worm inside', the narcissistic system hides its dysfunction, even from the people who grow up inside of it. This masking is what makes treatment so difficult; you cannot heal what you do not understand." ~ http://www.academia.edu/924834/Adult_Children_of_Narcissistic_Parents_The_Echoes

I think my father held on to his dysfunction because he believed his suffering (and the consequent suffering of those around him) would make him a better poet. And because it was for this cause of becoming a better poet, it was all selfless and justified, not dealing with any past pain and working through it to become healthier. I believe in my dad's mind, that would have removed his talent for poetry, and he was terrified of losing that special gift. I, for one, do not want to be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of poetry. Thank you, but no. 

I have my own quote about this: "Don't call suffering upon yourself.  Life will bring you plenty all on its own." ~Miriam Mason

I could cry during a Shakespearean tragedy, that was fine, even expected. He loved it when I got stuff he wanted me to get. But I could not cry because of anything he did or decided, or because I needed to be held and not judged, or because I needed to be loved for just being me. Because then he'd "really give you something to cry about." Or turn you over as the "bad child" to mom to take care of.  Some more on Shakespeare later, also.

“Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.” ~ Elizabeth Bowen

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13 - The Common Denominator, or 3 Out of 3 Odds

©Miriam A. Mason

A lot of processing going on in this blog entry, be forewarned.  Repeating to myself the Truth of my experiences helps me to accept my own voice about them.  I am rewiring my brain as I write this.  To accept a new truth, a truth that I am enough.  And already I have noticed some changes.  

And really... what are the odds?

Whenever something unexpectedly bad happens in my life -- a bout of severe chronic illness, a change in money input or what feels like money troubles (huge trigger there), when things don't go down as planned or scheduled, when jobs change or are lost, when a beloved animal gets sick, when my children have an especially difficult time in their lives -- my body and brain automatically catastrophize it.  Adrenaline is released, and panic sets in.  A toxic concoction of the chemicals that help make up the emotions of shame and fear pour into my body and brain like a poisonous chemical spill, they get everywhere.  I shake, and I fall into an instant deep depression.  I feel somehow I have earned whatever this bad thing is that has happened (even if it's not directly to me, I can feel the effects still).  Shame and fear make me freeze inside like a deer in the headlights, unable to think or function beyond the thought of my next breath, let alone, the next day.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/BattlingChronicPainandMentalHealthTogether

It is like climbing a mountain in the dark in wet soaking galoshes with both hands tied behind my back and a blindfold, to try to find my way through it when this hits.  It is physically devastating, periodically even leaving me bedridden and weak for several days.  Sometimes sleeping it off is the only possibility, and when I wake up, there is no guarantee it will have changed.  I get stuck emotionally and sick physically, and while I get up to love on my children who deserve nothing less every moment, I want to dig deeper for even more patience for them, and I am cruel and mean to myself in my mind, not being able to connect to unconditional love for my own being.

Because I have been taught I am a shameful being, not entitled to the good things in life because I haven't earned them in the way my parents (and now apparently brother) see fit, I have to consciously remember why this is happening to me.  I have to set up alarm systems, and intellectualize it so that when I take that big dip, I am able to cling to a rope that tells me there will be a way out of here, even if I can't see it yet.  That I did not deserve this any more than I deserved being dry raped.  That  I am a deeply sensitive person, and that it is okay. That bad things happen to good people all the time. That my family isn't around to bring shame into the picture, or try to make me feel bad about myself.  And that I am smart and capable and can think my way through most every problem that comes my way.  I have to consciously, mindfully, purposefully remember that  I am strong and able to get through this.  And that it is not my fault that it happened.  That's the biggest bit, right there.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

And even then, it sometimes doesn't work and I fall, ropeless, into the abyss.  I can intellectualize it, but my emotions don't believe it.  Figuring out how to climb out from the bottom is a lot harder. That rope slips through my fingers because it has always slipped through my fingers.  Sometimes the only way out is through.  All I can do is wait it out until I'm well enough to help myself climb out.  My husband, who I love more every day, also has his own pits he falls into and he sometimes tries to rescue us both.  He is my hero, the quiet kind.  And my chosen family, they can tell when it's happening and they are present for me.  Without help, it can feel impossible, even when I am telling myself that I am strong enough to hold on to that rope. 

The power of the chemical adrenalin stew is enormous over my body, my adrenals crash from the effort of having to expend extreme conscious energy just to remember those good things and the rope; and if that rope fails, then on top of all that, I have to mentally to climb out of the pit, too, with rope burn, no less.  Half the time I am internally frozen in this process as I cascade downwards.  It is horrible.  I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/marilynwefel.schmidt?fref=ts

This is the gift narcissistic and violent parenting has bestowed upon me and my siblings.  This family model is dysfunctional.  All the kids.  3 out of 3.  The temperaments of each of us are different, so we handle it differently, but the rivers run deep, so deep, they are cold and dark and terrifying.  Shame is our closest companion, even if we don't see it.  I see it now driving the lives of my brother and his wife.  I don't want it driving my life any more.  I never wanted it in the first place, but it was ever-present in my life and a great tool for manipulation.

One of the wonderful comments on this blog mentions parents as narcissistic egg donors.  I like that very much.  My parents wanted their children. They wanted to have small people to control.  They worked hard to get all three of us born, and then they proceeded with their plan to make us into reflections of themselves, undealt with pain and shame and blame included, in fact, prioritized.

The narcissistic parent is unable to give unconditional love. Instead they give steeply conditional love -- only. If you do, behave, choose and act the way I want you to, the way I think is acceptable, then I will give you love. If you deviate by offering your own unique observations, especially of us, or do anything I deem wrong or out of line with my observations, I will withdraw that love from you. And force you to apologize in order to get my love back. And even then, I will hold this event over your head for the remainder of my life to remind you of exactly how unworthy you are and how quickly love can be completely removed from your life. 

They have complete power over a child.  I am working hard to remove their power in my adulthood, but it is a daily struggle.  There is never a time I feel completely able to cope with the hard things in life unless I have strong validating voices behind me.  During the darkest times, I don't see any value in my life at all, and I know that's just not true.  My emotions have been very well trained, and I have to pull myself back from those feelings as well.

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Before anyone decides that I'm evil for refusing to "respect my elders," let me just say, elders who demand earned respect from their subordinates should expect the same in return.  My parents never earned my personal respect. They were successful to the world outside, and, I might add, in a much easier financial and economic climate.  But inside, they were a disaster and that disaster took place all over their kids.

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Fact: it is never the child's fault, not ever.

Until I grew close to a lovely group of people who showed me by example how to love unconditionally, I had no idea that unconditional love even existed.  It wasn't even on my radar.  No child can ever hope to maintain stability on their own, especially in the darkness and confusion of conditional love alone, and without a steady stable support system, a cushion for the big emotions of being a developing human child. My parents gave us a stable house to live in, but not a stable love to hold within so that we could build ourselves into the people we were actually meant to be. And they did not provide an environment even close to violence-free.

Source: http://www.facebook.com

 
What is the common denominator between all three of the Family children having such troubles and ending up so splintered and wounded?
 
My brother was out of the house for the most part by 14, a full blown heroin addict. My sister spent her years bitter and angry, and when she finally got her MD, she left, divorced the family, changed her politics so that they were opposite of the family, hid her number, her location (actual address) from everybody in the family and has found her own private path without any family involved. And now me, struggling with the truth of my experiences, a feeling of being unaccomplished and unworthy, and invalidated by family members at every turn. That what I do to gain status (money, position, etc.) is more important than the fact that I am alive at all. That my life is a failed competition, and that the things I have done aren't of value because some authority hasn't deemed them so. And I also have divorced my family. 

What are the odds?

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Apple and the tree and all that?  My parents lived their own lives in panic and shame themselves.  And they were clearly anxious to lay those things quite early on at our feet.  The state of the Family is one of malaise.  Families that love one another and do not incorporate shame and conditionality remain close.  We will never be close.  We are and will remain estranged, because nobody else seems to want to go on this journey of self discovery.  And frankly, we are all too wounded.
 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DomesticViolenceKills

Those of us who have not examined what really happened to us as children will continue those patterns into the next generation.  Well done, mom and dad.  Here's your cookie.  Go away now, get out of my head. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

Even with the struggles, I think I was probably the luckiest of the three of us. I found loving people outside of my family. People who modeled unconditional love to their children. People who, by mere example, showed me how my family really wasn't loving at all. People who can love without using shame and who do understand how to help people resolve conflicts without blaming one another.  These people have offered me love in ways that I never expected I could have. 

Source:  http://www.facebook.com

As it exists, my family is not entitled to be in my life any longer.  I am fully no contact, and should my brother attempt to contact me, I will require a third party moderator for us to interact in a way that more closely resembles a civilized conversation, rather than a list of shaming accusations.  My brother and his wife are unable to have that with me, that has been more than apparent in our interactions since the death of my parents.  And I am unwilling to provide them an audience for their threats of anger and judgment sitting around every corner, in every dusty shelf, in the cracks of their lives.  They are not safe.  They are now the picture of NPD.  And they don't even know it.

 

What are the odds?  Three out of three kids being dysfunctional is not a reflection of the kids. They are not responsible. They only become responsible as adults. Something my parents never came to terms with or faced even remotely, throughout the entirety of their adult lives. They were cowards in that they never owned any of their problems or even tried to look at them. And their beliefs were simply their own wishes, with no more validity than anybody else's wishes. (Lest we forget my father's prestigious position at UC Berkeley, which made him better than most people, certainly his children, at least to him.)
 

My father believed that children were blank slates and that you could imprint whatever you wanted upon them. He believed that forcing them to be taught to be, or think a certain way would make them become the people he wanted to see them become. While intellectually, he knew that each person was completely different  -- he even wrote a poem about the lesson of snowflakes for me when I was 7, which he would later use to try to convince me that he was a great parent who understood individuality; it's that narcissistic gaslighting manipulative mental mind frack that he was so good at -- his writing and intellect did not match up with his emotional treatment, behavior and parental decisions. He was the adult, and yet he competed, lectured, forced, demanded, lectured, judged, critiqued, belittled, lectured, shamed, lectured, out-argued, lectured some more and asserted control in whatever manner worked, to get us to be the kids he envisioned. And it clearly never worked. Not once, in fact three out of three misses flat out. Yet he banged on and on as if he'd been making the right choice all along.  

Source: http://www.facebook.com

Until he got sick, and cruelty to his children began to insult his soul.

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12 - Sexual Abuse at School, Oblivious Parents/Adults

©Miriam A. Mason

[Note here, I had so much trouble writing this all out. I didn't realize how I still held it in. Stirs up a lot of triggery stuff for me, a lot of mixed emotions, but it's the first time I've felt sadness for the small person I was. Instead of anger at the people who didn't protect me, or want to ask me what was happening and who were actually angry at me for having these experiences. If it's triggering me, it might trigger you, too. So trigger warning.]
 
 * * *

There was complete neglect and denial of daily sexual abuses during my 4th grade year at school. I think it had profound effects upon me, and I still struggle with the after effects of what I describe here.  I'm having trouble finding appropriate pictures.  Here's my 4th grade picture, hiding my braces and a lot of other things, too:

4th Grade School Picture of me.

There is some background needed here. I wasn't the only girl who suffered this abuse. To date, I have seen none of them come forward, at least to my knowledge. In my first year of school in the first grade, Berkeley decided to integrate the schools. The primary years, K-3, the kids from tough West Berkeley would be bussed to our school. I didn't think about it, honestly, I had friends who were black and friends who were white.
 
But then we were bussed into West Berkeley for the 4th-6th grades. Suddenly this pale, blonde, blue-eyed girl had a target on her back, particularly in the 4th grade. There was the matter of being unable to go the bathrooms safely at school while in the playground, because there were girls sitting on the tops of all the doors, stopping you from going in, slamming you into the doors using their feet against the walls to push you over with the door. In addition to that, any free toilets had shit smeared all over them so you couldn't sit down on them. I have had chronic gut issues my whole life, including as a child (another blog, another time). I learned to hold it in all day long. This has had both physical and psychological long-term effects on me. (Duh.) 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DomesticViolenceKills

There was the matter of being a doll in the playground. One girl would grab me and want to brush my hair and another would come along and throw me on the ground and chastise the other girl for wanting to brush my hair, or even touch me at all. I was just a doll.
 
I more than got the message. They were really angry. And actually, they had every right to be angry. But there are ways of coping with anger that the school system simply ignored. They ignored what happened at every turn, all the adults. It was covered up, or neglected. It was the most broken school system during those years when we were supposed to be coming together.
 
I am angriest at my parents for not paying attention at all. I was suddenly in what felt like a concentration camp. I had all the stresses that entails. There were no safe hiding places. No safe places to eat, no safe places to go the bathroom, no safe places in the classrooms, no safe places in the halls, or walking to the buses.  Everywhere was a possible area to be attacked in.  I learned to be small then, too. And compliant. Or get hurt worse than I was being hurt already. 

Meanwhile, as a childhood friend who shared similar experiences, pointed out, our parents were sitting at home, drinking their scotch and sodas, in their entitled upper middle class white privilege, feeling really good about themselves, while their children were in the trenches, battling in a war they didn't even know they were in, getting beat up, bloodied, and profoundly hurt, sight unseen.  That's sort of the pinnacle of narcissism and disregard for the experiences of children.  My friend's mother was willing to hear her daughter as an adult, and feels a deep regret.  This is called functional parenting.  My parents never would have.  They were too terrified of looking bad.  Too sick with NPD to be able to handle anything like what happened in the Berkeley School systems over those years.  It was all about them feeling good about themselves.  Anything that happened to me I must have invited upon myself, according to their world view. 

For this, my parents cannot be forgiven.  It is disgusting and inexcusable and nobody was doing any kind of "best they could" at all.  That's the biggest lie of lies.

The first teacher I had that year for 4th grade was certifiably crazy, probably a full-blown psychopath. In one instance, she made two girls who didn't like each other (both of them named Tina) physically fight one another in the classroom as the rest of us had made a circle of desks around them and were supposed to watch as they hurt each other. Blood was drawn that day. It was like Roman bread and circuses.  Which kid could draw more blood and hurt the other kid the most?
 
She regularly played favorites and would reward what she thought the best assignment was by announcing it to the rest of the class and giving the winner candy in front of us.  She pitted us against one another in assignments and discussion, so the classroom would be ripe for another type of abuse.

 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DomesticViolenceKills

She created these sessions she referred to as "circles" in which one student would be singled out by another student, and then be forced to sit in the center of a circle while all those with complaints about them aired them openly, and the center repeatedly asked things like "why did you do that?" and "you know that is wrong." and other admonishments, regardless if the accusations were true or not. We were 4th graders. Many complaints weren't true at all. Invariably the center of the circle would be so hurt, they'd be moved out of her class, usually requested by their parents, sometimes requested by the attackers in the circle.
 
I became the center of one of those circles against a couple of girls who hated me. Others who I had trusted joined in the chorus, because that is what all of we apes do in crowds, we join the majority where it is safe. It crushed me. It was a burden for my parents, who, once they understood, took all their energy into firing this woman and never allowing her to work with children again. (The irony there is that she then worked with "remedial"' children... or children with special needs... like mine, because clearly... they didn't matter at all.)
 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DomesticViolenceKills

I remember one of the friends who'd joined in with the apes against me had been my best friend. I had truly loved her. A few weeks later, she came up to me and put her hand on my shoulder and said, "you were so right about them." Not an apology or anything. I said nothing. I walked away and let her hand fall. I was so deeply broken and unheard. After the circle, it was too late for "you were rights."  

[I want to make a note here, and it is with no satisfaction that I say it, for we were all victims of a terrible merciless system, and often horrific parenting -- as in my case.  But the girl who initiated the circle against me, ended up a heroin addict, living off and on on the streets of Berkeley.  At least the last time I bumped into her.  She was not a well person, as I couldn't really make out anything she said very well, and she seemed to totally forget what she had done to me, and was hanging on me as though we were old time friends.  We were not.  Not ever.  As a child she would be characterized as a mean person, and not someone I ever really wanted to be close to.  I feel deeply sorry for her situation.  She must have had it even worse than I did for her to hurt herself so badly as an adult.]

I was transferred to another teacher as my parents went through gyrations to get this first teacher fired. I was transferred to a class that didn't have things like circles, but it had something else. It had boys that were bigger and would take me (and other small fair girls) and throw them onto the hard floor, jump on top of them, and go through the motions of a dry rape.  The boys referred to it as "doing the pussy."  Over and over and over again, every day, any time they caught you behind the coat rack, or the teacher left the room, often three or four times a day. And you knew, if you said something, they would hurt you worse. They punch you in the face, many many times.  They choke you.  They slam your head repeatedly against a floor or wall.  10 years old.  All of this was done to me (and other girls) multiple times a day.  Every single school day.
 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/DomesticViolenceKills

I tried to tell both my mom and the teacher what was happening. I couldn't articulate it except to say the boys were touching us in ways that I didn't like. You know what they both said to me? "Oh, just ignore it. They'll stop." But they never did. And when I told the truth about some crayons once, without realizing it was the bully I was speaking about (I didn't think twice, it was just the truth), he beat me up every day for two weeks. I'd slink along the walls of the hallways just trying to disappear.
 
No adults watching. No help from any adults around. No bathrooms, nothing but cement and metal and violence. No noticing from my parents. Later psychological responses and "irrational" fears would be blamed on me and I would be shamed over them without them ever knowing the truth.
 
I am angry still about this. I'm not angry at the kids who did it. I'm angry at the school system for being utterly incompetent and not noticing. I'm furious at my parents, who utterly ignored and neglected to act on any signs that I was being seriously injured at this school. Nothing. "Ignore it."
 
I caught the stomach flu during the 4th grade year. It was scary to me and I felt out of control when I threw up and my mother griped at me because I missed the bucket and got the blanket instead.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

In the 5th grade, I developed an extreme phobia to vomiting, and thought I would throw up every single day. I was obsessed with it and I begged to stay home from school, I did a lot of my school work at home, as much as I could, I felt sick all the time. I had internalized the entire previous year. I had equated the loss of control of my sexual boundaries with that of losing control of my stomach, and with the fear of returning to school the next year. It all got mangled up into a terrifying phobia which paralyzed me throughout 5th grade.
 
My parents didn't want to hear about it. They blamed me and told me something was wrong with me and I needed to talk to a psychologist, and they sent me to one (more below on that). My mom also took me to a doctor who tried to give me something that would make me throw up to "get over your fear." I flat out refused. This was not helpful. I needed a feather and my parents were using a sledgehammer.
 
My brother was in absentia doing drugs and my sister was busy fighting her own demons around my parents. The phobia I developed was I imagine the only way I could express my need to be away from the school I was in and the extreme horrific painful violence that accompanied it. Articulating it to my folks wasn't possible.  I couldn't even articulate it to myself.  And my folks were not anxious to hear anything that caused them any more additional stress.  The circle thing had finished them out for the year.  They were done with me having complex troubles.

 

There was no safe place. My parents impatiently told me day in and day out and I wouldn't throw up so I shouldn't worry. They allowed me to stay home, but they didn't like it and they let me know it. It never occurred to them to ask me if there was a reason, or to gently offer me a safe place to tell them what had actually happened. Listening wasn't something they could do. They truly did not want to hear it.
 
The truth is they were terrified, both of my emotions and of the possibility that they could be responsible for seriously hurting their own child, or allowing their own child to be hurt. It was emotionally too much for them. At a great cost to me. They had put me in this giant experiment and then they'd turned their backs on me.
 
In fact, the things I experienced at school seemed to validate my parents idea of me. I was bullied and beat up later as well, having already been in this role too young. In junior high I asked for simple emotional support from a "friend" (a sociopath, then and now) to which she responded by writing my family's phone number on all over the bathroom walls along with "slut," spreading rumors and lies about me to an enormous school of 3000 kids, so much so I had to stop going, and it forced us to change our phone number. 

I was a vulnerable kid, with no safe space, and the predatory kids knew it. I was looking or some sort of support where there was zero at home and not finding it in the perilous members of my ill-developed peers. They also knew it was more likely my mom would yell at me about anything that happened than listen or back me up in any way. At 12, before I totally shut down, I was already so beat down and beat up, that I was easy prey for such a violent school system.
 
My parents repeatedly implicated that my difficulties were a result my character, my badness, my emotional brokenness, rather than the fact that I had blond hair and blue eyes and was in a newly integrated school system in the early 1970s. I was just broken, that's all. 

As above, during all the school violence and the phobia, my mother decided something was really wrong with me and sent me to a psychologist. The psychologist was not at all supportive of me, and after a few appointments, I begged not to go. All she did was point out my character flaws, like my mother on steroids. My mother's response to my pleading to stop was, "you call her and tell her, then." Even though my mother had been the one to decide I needed to go, set up the appointments and made me go. I had to call the office myself and cancel my appointments. Just another chip to add to my ever-growing pile of shame and failure.
 

“The mother gazes at the baby in her arms, and the baby gazes at his mother's face and finds himself therein... provided that the mother is really looking at the unique, small, helpless being and not projecting her own expectations, fears, and plans for the child. In that case, the child would find not himself in his mother's face, but rather the mother's own projections. This child would remain without a mirror, and for the rest of his life would be seeking this mirror in vain.” ~ Donald Woods Winnicott

I bounced somewhat back during the 6th grade when I had the most wonderful teacher. She was the best and I finally felt safe in her classroom at that school. And then again after the junior high incident, I moved to a small high school, one in which everybody knew everybody else. And after a quiet first year there, I made friendships and had experiences that helped me heal profoundly. It was never really safe at home. But school, at least, was pretty safe for those 3 years.

People do all sorts of things to avoid feeling the pain of abuse.  They compartmentalize, they disassociate, they bury and try to forget, they get physically sick, they have inexplicable bouts of extreme anger, they project, they deny.  I believe I've done some of everything in this list.  But it's time to stop those things and speak the truth.  Finally to set myself free.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/pages/After-Narcissistic-Abuse-There-is-Light-Life-Love/114835348601442

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11 - The Only Others, My Sister and Shanti

©Miriam A. Mason

I experienced only a small bit of sexual abuse when I was a child within my family, and that was from my older sister, who I loved and who seemed to love me, demonstratively more than my parents were able to. She provided empathy where there was often only sympathy followed by impatience and judgment.  She supported the person I really was, not her idea of who I was supposed to be. I am grateful to say there was not more. I'm certain in my heart she feels a deep remorse for it. I am certain she remembers it and she would not scream at me if I brought it up. I forgive her, for she, too, was a controlled and neglected child under the rule of a couple of narcissists who appeared respectable to the outside world. It was pretty minor compared to what I experienced at school and on the streets in my neighborhood growing up. Still not a perfect picture, either.

But she also saved my life. Twice. At least.

About 10 months old there.  Sister was 8.

I remember one very stormy day when I was very small. I don't recall if I was in Mexico or India at that stage, but I do know we were traveling and were staying in a hotel. I was out front watching the lightening. There was a porch with an overhang around the whole hotel, like the cheap kind have.  My mother was no where that I can remember, but my sister was keeping a close eye on me. 

I remember seeing the lightening. There wasn't even the slightest doubt in my little mind, it was headed straight to me. I stood against the metal rails under the porch overhang and could easily see that it was going to miss the overhang and hit me.  It all went so freaking fast.  I saw it coming closer, almost as if in slow motion, and suddenly I felt strong loving arms surround me, pull me inside the door and the door slammed. Immediately following that, lightening slammed against the door and fried a big black circle into it.

That lightening had my name on it, I knew it and whoever grabbed knew it.  It would have killed me and even as a very young child I recognized this. I looked up behind to find my sister's face looking down at me, her brow furrowed. I recall she said something like, "woah!" The love in her eyes was clearly discernible. I remained in her arms.

My mother wandered out from a back room and saw us on the floor together. I don't recall clearly what happened after that, but I do know that it did not involve my mother kneeling and taking both her frightened daughters into her arms to comfort them. I'd have remembered that.
 

Sister & I, Halloween 1972, she took me trick or treating

 On another occasion, I was 11, my sister and I were in Quincy making those wonderful memories. My sister had taken to riding a horse named Priscilla every day out into the forest. I'd see her disappear like a dot across the fields and into the trees. I wanted to ride the horse, too, but was nervous and shaking. I climbed onto Priscilla's back and the horse suddenly went crazy. Maybe she felt my intense fear, but she was ready to take off into the woods with me on her back hanging on for dear life. My sister had a hold of the reigns. She held on to that enormous animal, it dragging her along, she refusing to let the horse take off or buck me off her back. After what seemed like a really long time, but was probably only a minute or so, my sister stopped the horse.  I got off. 

She held me tightly as I shook. She also tried to make me feel better about having some how set the horse off. We spent a long time talking about it, processing it.  She was always willing to help me process stuff when she was around.  I don't even think we told my mom about that one. It was just in another example of my sister actually being there in my life, to save my life and my mom (and certainly not my busy self-important dad) being nowhere around, or even vaguely interested.  My sister fought laying her own life on the line for me both times.

My mother was never there to save my life, she just didn't live *with* me.  She couldn't have saved me.  She didn't have the ability to save her own emotional well-being, let alone mine, or my sister's.

I don't think it's unusual for an older sibling to save a younger sibling. I think it's probably fairly common. I also don't think it's unusual necessarily for an older sibling to care for a younger sibling -- but mostly in households with lots of kids. My mom wanted the position of having kids without having the really messy emotional hard work of having kids.

The family with one member missing,
the metaphor for my childhood

My siblings were 12 and 7 years older than myself, and only one of them was at all involved in my life. Had I been in an only child situation, I think I might have died long before my parents could ever raise me to be the scared and trapped person I grew up into. That lightening would have taken care of that.  For my mother was not in my life, not in any real meaningful way. My parents only wanted us involved in their lives. Not really the other way around.

Because my siblings were so much older, I did end up spending a lot of time alone, left to my own devices...
 

Grateful for my wonderful patient dogs.

I treasured most all of the time I got to spend with my sister. We had some mean sister arguments, too, but the good times with her were really good times. That was a treasure I never got with my brother.

In fact, for whatever icky stuff may have occurred between myself and my older biological sister, she was by far much more of a mother to me than my own mother. And for that, and for those memories, and for saving my life, probably even more than those two times I can clearly recall, I am deeply grateful to my sister. I will always hold a soft space of love for her, no matter how far apart we have grown now. Her politics may be different than mine. Her beliefs may be different. But she really did love me. She was the one (mostly) gentle person in my childhood besides Shanti, my Āyā (आया - nursemaid, carer or nanny in Hindi), who gave me unconditional love, in ways my mother hadn't. This was something my parents could not bring themselves to do.


Shanti was hired almost immediately when we went to India (as was Babulal, our handlebar-moustached live-in private cook, who watered down the food because we were Americans).  My mother had very little to do with me that year.  I remember only a few incidences and then coming together to eat dinner at night.  A most stuffy and unfriendly experience in which my father commanded sternly.  To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what my mother was doing most of that 14 months.  At dinner, my sister and I would mush around with our watered-down food and then excuse ourselves and go eat off of banana leaves on the floor with the servants (including Shanti).  That was the real food, the best food I ever tasted. And the most wonderful company.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_and_religion

In India for 14 months when I was 4/5, my parents could afford a nanny for me full time.  Shanti lived with us.  Had my mother been able to afford a nanny stateside, she would have no doubt done that, too.  In a way I wish she could have.  She did have good taste in nannies, and carers which she used in both Mexico and India.  Shanti provided me with a contrast, but she was careful, too.  I know she didn't want to take the place of the Ghara kī rānī (lady of the house). There was no shame or getting into trouble with Shanti, and she never once "told" on me to my parents for any kid-like thing I did.  She let me explore and be me. Shanti loved me openly and freely and I loved her just as much as I'd ever loved my mother.

We were well-to-do in India and hung out with "important" people.  I do not remember this day, or Tuks [pronounced Toocks], or anything about it, although it was important to my parents.  This is Tuks Edwin's birthday party.  He was the son of the Ambassador to Nigeria.  Can you find me in there? The one with the grimace.
 

Tuks' Birthday party, 1966

This above photograph, however, and pictures of famous buildings, seemed to be the most important ones to my folks.  There were a few posed ones on horses, too.  Where they were and who they met and this is what we did photos.  The kids were not the focus of their cameras unless it was in those situations.

Unfortunately my parents didn't take many pictures of Shanti, if any, and I don't have them, they're in my brother's possession.  I will never see her face again, and this is sad. 

UPDATE: Digging through the stuff I took when my mother passed away, I found an entire photo album of India, with just 4 pictures of Shanti for the whole 14 months.  But there she is!  Look how tiny she is!  I was 4/5.  My sister who was 11/12 was already taller than Shanti.  I am so happy I took that photo album.  We look like the little British Patriarchical family my father so wished to have, "old school," he used to say.  There is my beloved Shanti.
 

When I find the paintings we sat for while there, I will scan them in and post them to this blog.  At least mine.

When we left India, Shanti begged my father and mother to take her with us, to take her to America.  They refused, feeling it would be too complicated.  I was heartbroken.  It was harder to leave Shanti behind than it was to ever leave my mother.

Later other people and families would provide contrast.  But my sister and Shanti will live in love in my heart as the deepest bonds of my childhood.

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