Where my constant CPTSD nightmares come from

 Hi everyone. Part two on my history of nightmares and what I've learned about them. I've only recently begun to acknowledge how I was abused, neglected, abandoned, exploited, parentified, manipulated, shamed, shame dumped on, marginalized and gaslit by four parents, two bio and two step. What first made me start to relook at situations were the constant nightmares I experience every single night and have done since childhood. I described them in yesterday's post. 

I've talked to a lot of people and have not yet found anyone who has had nightmares anything like mine. In my dreams, I'm constantly being expected to do things for others but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm caring for a big group of kids and adults, having to cook for, clean up after (including disgusting toilets and bathrooms), do mountains of laundry for, in unfamiliar circumstances which keep changing. I'm also trying to get people ready for some event or trip. Sometimes I'm even driving but the vehicle keeps changing and sometimes it's not even a vehicle. But again, I don't know what or where and no one is being at all cooperative.

In my dreams, I don't have the tools or resources. I don't know where I am or who I'm responsible for. And it keeps changing. Often I've lost a child and am terrified. Children get injured and drown. Often, I'm supposed to be teaching school and everyone is disobedient and yet I'm expected to make them mind. Very confusing and shifting. 

And though I am an adult in my dreams, I'm being chided and scolded like a child (or like I was as a child, not as I would treat kids). Other adults, usually my dad and stepmom are angry with me. They shame me like a naughty child and yet still expect me to do whatever it is they expect me to do but  have not communicated with me. Often, others are angry with me too but won't say what I've done. I think it's because I've been dysregulating (coming unglued). 

My dreams are always chaotic and upsetting or downright terrifying. I never have peaceful dreams. I have variations of these dreams so often that I'm not sure if it's a memory. I did some research and the closest I can come is PTSD nightmares that shell shocked combat veterans have. No, I wasn't in a war but did live in a constant minefield with the abuse, neglect, inappropriate expectations, shaming, abandonment, parentification and gaslighting. Like combat veterans, I've dealt with extreme, bizarre and terrifying situations, beginning at a very young age. I've always felt overwhelmed and terrified. I was unprepared for any of the terrible situations my parents put me in. 

The more I look objectively at my nightmares, the more I find their basis in reality. I've been parentified by parents since I can remember. The role reversal flip-flopped to extremes. I was the parent/adult and they were the children. They left me behind, left me out and abandoned, neglected, endangered and acted immaturely and impulsively, just as if I had been the adult. But then, they would suddenly become the parents, but in a very punitive, irrational and unpredictable way.  I was expected to read minds and comply. 

When they got divorced and then hooked up with other partners, I was parentified and expected to parent those partners as well. I was also weirdly infantilized being treated like a naughty child all the while doing their work and being responsible for them. Then beginning around age 11, I was expected to parent their children, including my  mother's foster care kids who were all special needs. I slept with them and got up at night with them while she slept in the basement with her boyfriend. They made me obey people who were not my parents or indeed mature enough to be parents. I was at the mercy of four very mercurial, demanding and disturbed people. 

My dad and stepmom made me sleep their babies and get up at night with them. At one point, they locked me in my youngest brother's room so my stepmom could sleep uninterrupted. I was working and going to school. They never asked how he did or if I got any sleep. I was so tired that I often fell asleep behind the wheel driving. 

They all also expected me to juggle many family tasks that they themselves did not help with. I did almost all the housework and still my dad would expect me to "fix" anything that was upsetting my stepmom. They would gaslight me into thinking it was my fault or that I had done something wrong. When my stepfather kicked me out of house at 16, I believed that I'd done something so terrible as to warrant that, when all I'd done was to come home an hour late.

And the adults who had parentified me, were also always angry with me, it seems. They never took responsibility for their own foolish, negligent choices and frequently destructive and illegal behavior. They never admitted any wrong. Somehow it was always my fault. And I believed and internalized it all. 

I can't now, as a mom and grandparent of 59, see how I believed it. I've inhaled so many toxic fumes from the lies and gaslighting they fed me that my brain is burned out. I can't remember how I thought or even who I was. I don't recognize me. I've dissociated, split and fragmented so much and so often that I'm either a bunch of people or no one. But one thing is certain, they were sure as hell convincing. 

It didn't help that I was constantly deprived in sleep, nourishment, love and support. Unknowingly, I went around being one big unmet need. I didn't even know that I needed or that I should need things. I believed I was selfish if I even needed, let alone expected, things others took for granted. Like a bed, or a home or appropriate responsibility or a good night's sleep or care or honesty. Being a family member with all due privileges as well as expectations. Those things I had no experience with. 

What I did know was being the family scapegoat, the brunt of sexual jokes and toxic shaming. I knew being bullied, exploited, endangered, coerced, gaslit, marginalized, abused and neglected. Being made to do adult things at a very young age with no preparation, tools or training. Being taught no  coping or safety skills. Being pushed in the deep end and expected to swim. Basically, I knew from a tiny girl that what others had in the way of good things, was not for me and that what I had, in the way of bad, was good enough for who it was for. 

Given all that, my dreams do make sense. 

What my CPTSD and parentification nightmares look like and how they are destroying me

 Hi friends. Welcome to another snapshot of my personal hell. I've been exploring how my parents and stepparents abused, neglected, abandoned, parentified, exploited, shamed and then gaslit me about it all. Today I'm looking at how a lifetime of constant, nightly nightmares have resulted and how they are destroying me.  

Destroyed is a big scary word. But it describes to a T the complete obliteration of self that happens to a child that is abused and neglected and abandoned and exploited and parentified and shamed and gaslit about it all. By not one but four parents, each with his or her own brand of terrorism. What started me exploring were the nightly CPTSD nightmares, inability to sleep for more than an hour without waking in a nightmare and constant vigilant anxiety. 

My nightmares feature me constantly being in situations where I'm expected to do many things simultaneously including caring for numerous children (who keep disappearing), cooking, cleaning, laundry, schooling, etc. However I have no idea where I am, whom I'm supposed to be caring for and what I'm supposed to be doing. I don't even know to whom I answer to or why I'm doing these things. I never  have the tools or resources to do it all. 

And the scenario and location keep changing. One minute I'm driving, the next, we're in some kind of large place. Children are constantly getting hurt or lost. Frequently, a child falls into water and drowns. I'm frantic with worry, terrified, exhausted, bewildered and overwhelmed.  The expectations keep changing but one thing remains the same. I and I alone am expected to accomplish these many, varied and vague tasks. 

In my dreams, I'm an adult but I'm being treated like a bad child but I'm being expected to do the work of an adult, all the adults in fact. No one is helping me. I'm carrying the burden about six people, alone. And of course, I'm unable to. 

The "adults" in my dream, always my parents, usually dad and stepmom are angry with me. Furious, spitting angry. In one dream, my dad comes downstairs in his underwear mad because I've awakened him. That is how I most remember my dad, in real life. Angry. I did sort out that dream recently and I'll blog more about it later. 

Often, I dream that I've done something so unspeakably shameful that everyone is disgusted with me. I realize now that what I've done generally involves dysregulation of some kind. I had a meltdown and they saw. I screamed and cried and fainted. Everyone has gathered to tell me what a wretch I am and how they're going to shun me. 

For the longest time, I dreamed that I was missing a child. I'd wake night after night looking for her. My husband would have to reassure me that all was well. But my sleep brain didn't believe him and kept looking. This began when I was teaching, and a student went missing. Later, it was one of my own. 

Later, when I lost two stillborn daughters in 2001 and 2004, I'd dream that the baby I was supposed to be nursing wasn't there. Or that I'd forgotten to care for her. Or that she is lost or stolen. I still have that dream at least twice a week, 23 years later. 

I've had some dreams so often, and they are so real, that I don't always know what's memory and what's dream. I cannot sleep without dreaming. Ever. I wake terrified, crying, screaming and utterly shattered. I live in a kind of half wake half dream fugue. I asked others what their sleep experience was and unilaterally, everyone had had only the occasional bad dream and nothing like mine. 

So I began looking for research into these nightmares and I'll blog more on what I learned later.  

I can't detach because I have no boundaries or survival skills

 Hi everyone. Awkward uncomfortable post of the day. Looking at why I can't detach from negativity, abuse, toxic shame, exploitation, manipulation and gaslighting. It's going to be bumpy, so if you want to get off the ride now, feel free. 

Basically, I can't navigate dysfunctional situations with anything like healthy coping skills because I have none. I was taught no survival skills and was allowed no boundaries. In fact, healthy boundaries were tromped on by parents and stepparents to the point that they don't exist. 

I can't develop "thick skin" because I don't  have any skin, emotionally. It was ripped off by constant exposure to trauma, exploitation, narcissistic abuse, parentification, toxic shame, abandonment and gaslighting. And at almost 60, I have no way to remedy that. 

Now, the only response I know is fight, flight, fawn or freeze. Any why? Because that is what was and has been what's expected of me. It's just an endless shitshow of shame and shoved in it. It may get a little better but only so that it can come back with a vengeance and rip the frail rug of security out from under me and leave me broken again. 

I have no idea what to do or where to begin healing this very dysfunctional system. There's no guide book or instruction manual. In some cases, the exploitation was so bizarre and damaging that there's not even any framework for it. My parents and stepparents together found every way to hurt me and made up many of their own. 

I can't look to the Bible because there's no guidance for situations of such extreme behavior. All the guidelines point one way and my experience points another. For example, honor your parents. Got that. But what do you do when you honored your parents too much? What if they acted like God to you and expected so much that you became suicidal trying to please them? What if they encouraged you to commit suicide? I asked a priest once and he  had no advice. 

That's what I mean about no direction. You can't even use the suicide word online because it's so incendiary. So I can't talk about feelings that have plagued me all my life, not even to find help. You can't make this shit up. 

Alanon says to detach. But what if you grew up believing that detachment was a mortal sin? That you had to stay stuck in every toxic mess they forced you into?  What if detachment, to survive, was dangerous. Need examples?

My dad's wife ( I no longer call them parents because they weren't) would get upset about something or other. My dad would say "maybe Mari could fix it." Why was I even there to hear? Because they kept me on a choke chain leash. And then he would invite her to think of ways that I could "fix" her. Bearing in mind I already did 95% of the work around the house. And cared for her kids. And slept with and got up with them at night. And then I would obediently do whatever it was they came up with. I never got upset or even realized how bizarre this was till a few years ago.  One time, my dad beat me for looking like I didn't want to comply. I didn't. He invented that as an excuse and gaslit me into believing it was my fault. 

If he reacted so explosively to imagined "disobedience" how dangerous do you think it would have been for me to ever say no? Or detach? Boundaries are luxuries I didn't have and skin wasn't something it wasn't safe to grow. 

Why it took me so long to see abuse, neglect, parentification

Hey everyone! For the past few months I have been experiencing new awareness about things that happened in my life with my parents,  stepparents and half siblings. I've been reexamining situations and experiences  and sharing stories with trusted family members (husband) friends and therapists. We have come to the conclusion that I lived with chronic narcissistic abuse, neglect, abandonment, exploitation exploitation, family scapegoating, toxic shaming and gaslighting about it all. I developed CPTSD, codependency and critically low self-esteem. 

Recently I posted what happened to make me aware of this and what I was doing now about it, now that I know. I think the very first thing that led me to revisit these experiences were the constant nightmares I've had since childhood. They have revealed terror, insecurity, self-hatred, family scapegoating, parentification, gaslighting and the constant pressure I felt to please my parents, step parents and siblings. I realize that they stem from memories and feelings about them, buried deep under toxic shame and frosted with self gaslighting. They don't get better or no matter what I do so I think I'm supposed to be paying closer attention to them. I also began to listen to the voices in my head to see what they were saying and they have proved to be shame memory based as well.

But the dreams alone would probably have not been enough to wake me up (pun intended). What led to that was my mother's lies and gaslighting about past situations that occurred that she denied happening. There was more to it but that was a big part. Reviewing situations shows me that I am not wrong and things did happen as I said.  I also began telling experiences and getting feedback about them. I was affirmed that I was believed and encouraged to keep sharing. As I continue re-examining more situations, I find that they are not better but much worse than I remembered.

So I think the first step in healing from gaslighting, narcissistic abuse, neglect, exploitation, toxic shame and parentification, is to  just accept that they happened. And then start listening to toxic shame memories coming out in dreams, self-doubt and messages in my head. And then I had to come to the conclusion which is utterly cataclysmic for me, that I  was not treated lovingly or well and that I did not deserve this. It was not God's will for me. My parents were not God and did not speak for him. I had to stop making excuses for them and accept that their treatment was as bad as I remembered and inexcusable. I say cataclysmic because this revolutionizes what I've always believed, that despite all the abuse, shaming, neglect, abandonment and exploitation, my family basically loved (loves) me. I now realize they didn't and don't. I'll blog more on that later. 

So today I'm looking at why it took me so long, around 59 years, to begin looking at this. I think if I had to boil it down to one word it would be gaslighting. And how effective that was in keeping me striving to please, hating myself, believing their lies and allowing them to mistreat me. 

A child does not understand God. All she knows is her parents. If they are mostly loving and nurturing, she develops a basically positive self-esteem. If they are autocratic, cruel, abusive, self-centered and unloving, that is the idea of God that the child has as well. The more cruel they are, the more screwed up the child is. And my parents gaslit me into thinking that they and their spouses and their other children were gods. They could do no wrong they and I did nothing but wrong. It was so bad that I can't even look in the mirror without feeling revulsion, most days. I am very good at faking my way through life. 

Using a complicated scheme of scare tactics, shock treatment, unrealistic demands, delusions, lies, blame and shame, belittling, minimizing, disturbing behaviors, violent rage, and steady destruction of my boundaries, they were able to coerce me into a state of constant fear, anxiety, and desperate desire to please. This cult like fantasy life was not real but as hell felt real. I realize now that at a fairly young age I split from reality.  I played along with their delusions and let them treat me anyway they wanted. I accepted everything as normal and okay and what I deserved. 

I'll blog more later. Right now, I'm too bewildered. 

First step to accepting that I was abused by parents

I just blogged about how inadvertently catching my mom in lies and gaslighting about abusive, neglectful, exploitative, endangering things that happened to me (see previous post) got me wondering if other things I'd always accepted as normal were in fact also abuse, neglect, endangerment, exploitation and more gaslighting about it. 

So what now? How do I go about sorting that? I guess my first step, is to just say what happened and then to accept that they did actually happened and are not made up or exaggerated. Based on understood definitions of these things, I was abused and assaulted (sexually, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually and socially) neglected, bullied, abandoned, exploited, shamed, blamed, parentified and gaslit about it. 

So the next step. Accepting that they they happened is not accepting that they should have happened. It wasn't my fault I was abused, neglected, bullied, abandoned, exploited, screamed at, shamed, blamed or parentified. I didn't bring it on  myself. It wasn't God's will. He hadn't told them to do these things. They were not right. I didn't deserve them. I was not too sensitive, too critical, showing off, a bad kid, a letdown, responsible for, nasty, or any of the other things they gaslit me into believing. 

I was a kid. What I deserved was a childhood, not parentified and made responsible for everyone else. I deserved to be a teenager, not a scapegoat, servant, surrogate spouse and parent to four parents and their kids. I deserved happy memories with some sad, not sad or no memories. I deserved to have stuff, not have it sold and me not told, whenever the family needed money. I deserved a home, not couch surfing at their homes. I deserved to feel loved, wanted, respected and cared for and part of a family. Not unloved, unwanted, uncared for and excluded from their families. 

But I think I missed a step and have to take it even farther back. In order to accept that these things happened, were as bad as I remember and not make excuses for the perpetrators, I have to accept that my memories and version of the story is the accurate one, not their lies, weaponizing, shaming and minimizing.  But to do that, I have to examine how I know my version is true. (Sorry this is so much working backwards, but this is how it's playing out for me. I probably have to go back even farther, to look at why I believed their version but I'm too tired tonight) 

So how do I know my memories are accurate? Well, I guess for one thing, what I know about myself and what others have told me. I don't willingly hurt others and I certainly don't lie about them. Heck I've spent 6 decades lying FOR them. I'm not going to start making up stories now. And there's enough shit now, I wouldn't need to! 

And why would I? Not to get help from anyone. I never told anyone till  now. No one in the extended family knew or if they did, they never mentioned it to me. That's another part of my parents' gaslighting. If my extended family was so loving why did they ignore the abuse? If it was so bad, why did they act like it was fine. Either they don't love you or they approve of how we're raising you. 

I can't answer why they never said anything. Either they didn't know, didn't care, didn't want or know how to get involved. It was kind of DADT back then.  I think my mom's parents didn't know. I think my dad's dad didn't want to know. He just wanted to be loving and think everyone else was too. I think my dad's mom did know and was really bothered about it but everyone talked her down. 

What I do know is that in every little way they could, all four grandparents showed me love. I do not and will never believe that they would want to see me hurt. I don't believe any of them if they did know, would approve.   My parents on the other hand, were masters of deception. Like alcoholics, they knew where to hide the bottles. I think I shielded my grandparents because I wanted to keep them innocent and their homes safe. Maybe I didn't know what would happen if I told. More importantly, I've never liked distressing anyone. 

So I wouldn't make it up to get outside help. And not to get sympathy from one parent either. They didn't care how each other treated me. They actually encouraged their new spouses to abuse, humiliate, exploit, shame and neglect me. Even when my mom's was just her boyfriend. He moved into our house, unemployed, not looking for work and lazy AF. He hit the ground ordering me around "his house", shaming, mocking me, screaming at me, sexually abusing me and generally  making life hell. (remember what I said about "blisters?") My mother never once corrected him. In fact, she took his side every time he attacked me and often joined in the mocking. 

(Side note on the "Blisters" thing: Up till about two years ago, I just thought it was normal. It was my husband (then boyfriend) who called this out for the disgusting pedo sex abuse it was. But that wasn't till a few years ago that he told me. He didn't want to make life worse for me,  knowing how abusively angry mom's husband got. Sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reason. )

So I wouldn't lie for help or sympathy, how about attention? Hell to the no! I learned early on with them to keep my head well below the parapet. And I tend to downplay vs. exaggerate. Even in this blog, I've had to work hard not to minimize. But my mom and dad and stepparents are not so scrupulous as their track records have shown. Ergo the gaslighting. So I guess where this leaves us is, that if everything impossible has been removed, what's left is the truth. Boom. 

Why am I just now realizing my parents and stepparents abused, neglected, abandoned, shamed and exploited me?

 If you're following you know that I'm unpacking a ton of shit about how I was treated by family of origin. And just so you know, this is stuff I'm just now realizing. So I'm writing in real time, present tense. I've begun truth telling about how I was abused, neglected, abandoned, shamed, scapegoated, minimized, parentified, exploited, manipulated and gaslit about it all by parents and stepparents. I'm telling how bad it was as I'm remembering. I'm admitting that I was not loved or wanted. 

Burt why am I just now realizing this? Because gaslighting is so incredibly mind-effy that it clouded my judgement. I actually see gaslighting as more being gassed but with bullshit and lies instead of phosgene. It has a similar effect if it happened when it happens to a kid. It twists and deforms everything. It made me second guess and hate myself, defend and excuse them and tolerate any sick shit they chose to wreak on me.

I was also too afraid to look closely at what happened because 1) the carefully constructed lies they'd told about all that happened 2) being gaslit that no one would believe me 3) that I'd find I was and even bigger POS than they'd convinced me I was and 4) it was too terrifying. So I spent the last 59 years of my life living in a web of lies for fear of the truth. 

Then my dad died without ever confronting anything that happened, let alone apologizing. My stepmother had died a few years previously and she never admitted anything either. My brothers told very odd versions so I knew they didn't or wouldn't remember. Then my stepfather started confronting my  mom with some pretty bizarre things he said she did and lies she had told. And she contacted me, she said, to find out if she had. 

She claimed to have no memory of doing these things. What I think she was trying to establish was who remembered what and how she wiggle out of it. If she could pit us against each others, as she'd so often done in the past ( I now realize), so much the better. 

Some things I didn't remember until my aunt confirmed them. Then I recalled it. But in the grand scheme of shit she'd done, it was pretty small. Another thing involved me supposedly telling them about my first sex experience. I don't know if I did and it really didn't matter. She didn't care that it would have and still did make me very uncomfortable. All she cared about was clarifying who was right, like a Trivial Pursuit question. 

But being a mom-pleaser, I jumped to her defense, saying that he wasn't squeaky clean either. She latched on to that probably thinking I'd relate awful things he'd done to her, for leverage I suppose. I should have remembered that my mother has never forget anything anyone has done wrong to her, inventing them if she has to. And will store them up for future use. But I still had the blinders fully in place. 

I ended up telling things that both of them had done but made it sound like just he had done them. Things like kick me out of the house when I was 16 for coming in an hour late. He did that but she went right along with it. Then when I had to take care of her four foster kids, baby to age four, for a week when I was 11. I shared how devastated I was when I couldn't make the very special needs baby stop crying and how her  husband (then boyfriend) who was sleeping on the couch, screamed at me and accused me of shaking the baby. She completely took his side and joined the attack once she got back. . But I didn't mention that in the retelling. 

So that was pretty awful to relive. Especially given she was just checking to exonerate herself not out of any concern for how all this shit might have affected me. But her response was what affirmed that she didn't and doesn't care about me. Without realizing it, my story sharing was kind of a test, to see if she would take responsibility. And she reacted as I now accept she always reacted. First, she lied and said they never happened. Then she claimed she forgot that they had kicked me out. Then she said she would never have left me with four foster kids because "I would have lost my license." 

So she knew then that she was wrong. And if she flouted the rules once, she had many times before. Like making me sleep with all the kids in one room upstairs while she and her boyfriend slept in the basement two floors down. like allowing a man she was not married to, to live with her in the foster home. Like letting two other unmarried couples live in the home as well (one of which in my bedroom).  Like letting her boyfriend sexually assault me by calling me "blisters" in reference to my 11-year-old breast size. 

Then, after lying her head off, she played "loving mommy" being so sorry I felt that way (suicidal over supposedly shaking a baby). But at no time admitting to not only allowing these abusive things to happen but encouraging and participating in them. 

(Side note: I've come to see that he was lying about me shaking the baby, to cover the fact that he was sleeping and not helping with the baby. And that I shouldn't have even be caring for that many children for a week let alone a few hours. And that he didn't belong living at our house in the first place. But I never considered that until a year or so ago.) 

My husband identified recently that it was after this conversation that I began to question what happened to me and to see it as the abuse it was. I began to let memories I'd kept locked away, return. I was hoping that in letting them in, I'd discover that I'd exaggerated them. That there were more happy memories than I thought. Because all these years, I've clung to the myth that deep down, they loved me. They just didn't know how to show it. Or they did the best they could. Or just made mistakes. Or didn't mean to. Or that somehow time had healed the memories to the point where I didn't feel so much pain. 

Unfortunately, none of those things happened. I found the memories worse than I'd remembered. I recalled awful things I'd buried deep. And regardless of any test or litmus I subjected these things to, none of them came close to being loving. I reread the Bible on love and none of it fit with any acts of love. I asked other people and they unilaterally agreed. The behavior of my parents and stepparents constitutes ( because it goes on) abuse (sexual, emotional, physical, social, mental and spiritual), neglect, abandonment, trauma and shame dumping, exploitation, parentification and gaslighting. 

And in accepting that, I began to look at my chronic CPTSD nightmares, dysregulation, toxic shame and unspeakable sadness more closely. I began actually listening to the voices in my head and paying attention to the dreams. What I found is that they match up with the traumatic memories or based on devastating memory feelings. I'll blog more about the dreams later because they really need to be explored. 

How I'm healing from parentification by parenting myself instead

 I've been talking a lot lately being parentified from young childhood on up to almost 60. Parentification in my experience was both being expected to be the parent to my parents and stepparents and also to parent my half siblings. From very young childhood the roles were reversed. From age 5, I learned that adult behavior, maturity and understanding was expected of me. It may have been earlier than that but I have very few memories of that time. I have always thought this was because no child remembers but everyone I speak to about it tells me that they have many memories of this age. In fact one cousin who is my age, shared memories of things we did and happy times we had together that I do not recall. The more I thought about it the more I realize that I have virtually no memories that are happy for most of my life up until I moved out of the house. The happy memories I do have center around time spent with extended family. I will blog more on that. 

Thank you for letting me segue. And back to the parentification. I do not remember a time where I did not feel obliged, expected, even demanded to be an adult and parent to my parents, stepparents and siblings. I do not remember being allowed to be a child or a teenager but rather an overburdened adult with no preparation for that role. I remember my parents behaving in very immature, childish and selfish ways that I was expected to normalize, by making excuses, hiding, lying about to extended family, covering for and fixing. I was expected to tolerate all forms of abuse, neglect, abandonment, manipulation and exploitation from all four parents and siblings. I was treated very harshly if one of them even sensed that I did not like it. But I was also expected to present to others that all was fine.

Also the role and expectations flip-flopped. Sometimes they were the parent albeit very autocratic and and inconsistent ones. And very much when it was convenient for them. I was to be the adult when they did not want to be when they wanted act childishly. I was to be the child when they needed something done or a scapegoat. Or to save face for Grandma and Grandpa so they would not know. The flip flopping was very random and unexpected and always caught me off guard. So I learned to be on guard all the time. Their punishment was very severe when I missed my cue in the game. Sometimes there was punishment for no reason at all. And my biological parents let their new spouses have their way with me. I was very clearly told that it was my responsibility to fix anything. So if someone was having a bad day or just feeling like picking on someone or being nasty that role fell to me. 

It's kind of like I had to raise perpetual teenagers. But yet not. I have as a real parent raised actual teenagers and none of them ever did anything remotely so vindictive or cruel. I don't know exactly why they did this. Maybe they were narcissists or sociopaths or histrionic or just vindictive. What I do know is that it was confusing, terrifying and crippling. 

Their treatment sabotaged my self-esteem and in fact entire sense of self.  I did not exist, or if I did only in a sort of limbo, waiting for the next command or demand. I had no individuality, no needs, wants, ambitions, feelings or thoughts.  I was just a shadow, scapegoat , servant, surrogate spouse and surrogate parent. 

I know this sounds exaggerated or made up. It does to me too. And the gaslighting by both parents confirms that. I was just making it up, showing off, too sensitive, selfish. However, because I know that other people exist and not just to serve, I'm beginning to realize that maybe I do too. Maybe it's time to stop parenting my parents and start parenting myself. 

There is a 4 year old girl in Grand Rapids who plays alone and doesn't know that you shouldn't touch Dead rabbits. There is a 5 year old in Newago who walks to school alone and lives in fear  of pedophiles and "Dark Shadows. There is a 6-year-old in Alaska who plays down by the docks alone and watches her mother cheat on her father. This little girl also comforts her father when he threatens suicide. She is left abandoned and terrified on an island while her mother goes to Seattle and her father is cluelessly and carelessly having a grand adventure in the Aleutian chain, while his daughter cries herself to sleep. 

And that is only the beginning. There's sexually abused 11-year-old me. And 12-year-old me left alone with four little kids. And 13-year-old me made to do the work of an adult. And it goes on... Those stories will be part of my series on my backstory. 

So suffice it to say there are a lot of lonely, scared, exhausted, traumatized little Marilisas who need my parenting a hell of a lot more than these grown ass adults who just weaponized it. And I think all those little girls will appreciate a friend like me as well.