04 - Assuming the Worst Intentions

© Miriam A. Mason

My mother in particular, always assumed worst intentions. And my father backed her up, regardless. They were a unified force. We were always the bad children, the ones at fault. I have stories that illustrate this. I will share some of them as I write. But as I grew up, feeling I was always in the wrong -- and was always on the edge of being in trouble for something, even if I hadn't done it -- it leaked into my "friends" understanding and many used it against me, contacting my mother directly and bypassing me. They learned her fine skill of triangulation and took advantage of my mother's particular brand of cowardice in the face of social judgment. She always took the opposing side to her children in any conflict. 

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Because of the nature of the dysfunction in our family, I had no idea what a real friend looked like, how they could be, so I had a propensity for choosing friends who would hurt me, because I certainly must deserve to be hurt. I sought validation because I had none at home, other than what my parent's approved of. And invariably, I sought it from people who would later use it against me. This is how patterns of dysfunction begin.
 
My mother always came at me just certain I had done "it" (whatever the it was that day or hour) yelling at me, belittling and shaming me. It didn't matter if I done "it" without understanding the consequences, or not meaning for it to turn out the way it did, or even if I'd not done it at all. She was certain I was to blame. 

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She was that way with both my sister and myself. I have no idea what she was like with my brother because he had left the house for the most part by 14 (I was 2) and was already addicted to heroin. Which, just standing on its own, is evidence of a life gone wrong, and these things don't happen at random, there was a reason for this. From my brother, apparently already permanently wounded by my parents, all I could sense was that I was a strange little oddity with whom he rarely interacted beyond a mumble. It was clear from my first memories that he was deeply uncomfortable being around me. Other days he barely noticed I was even there, when I even saw him.

Had I known, in my small self, that my oldest sibling's status as an addict at 14 was an enormous red flag for what was about to come, I might have had more of a fighting chance, become obstinate and quiet and not let people see as much of me like my sister. But I was little, and vulnerable and much younger than my siblings, and a child and needed my parents to be parents. I also needed to be a full person, and have the complete range of feelings and still be loved fully. This never happened. Not on a single occasion.

I knew on some level that this wasn't a family of love, but a family of judgment and expectation. And that my brother had scared them enough to leave him alone mostly, and bemoan how sad it all was. They rarely spoke poorly of him, after all, he was their boy, and seemed to remain their golden child no matter what he did. This was my child-brain at work. I knew something was up, but had no way of defining it or articulating it at all, and even less ability to process it.  I knew I wasn't allowed to say anything about my observations, or about what they chose to share with me.  I was appropriately afraid.

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My mother even warned me that she was a bad parent straight out when I was a little girl. I was no more than maybe 6 or 7 when she told me "We messed up with your big brother really badly. He used to be a great artist," she said, gesturing to some amazing artwork on the walls of our basement room, "but now, he will never pick up a pen again. And he's doing drugs."

At 7, how am I supposed to process this? 7 year olds barely have a functional frontal cortex. Perhaps she was having a bad moment.

“. . . when a mother shares adult concerns with her daughter, a healthy dependence becomes impossible; the daughter feels insecure and alone because she has no parent on whom she can depend.”  ~ Karyl McBride, Will I Ever Be Good Enough?: Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers

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