Also, If I may add, I know I am still greiving, and I no longer know what pain belongs where. The truth is I’m frustrated and mad that she had to go, even sometimes at her, and I miss her, I am afraid I’ll forget her… by becoming this weird version of myself who has no heart, or love, or who to express that love towards. I am truly just heartbroken, truly, have no idea where or how to go from here, especially when people are no longer around.

Hello Anita, thank you for reading, always. I know last time you asked me a lot of things and you made me wonder so much what was going on with my heart, it seems it’s always in pain or something.

Before, words helped me. Now I’m clearly lacking something else. I appreciate your good wishes and answers, though. I feel so clueless.

In regards to your last question, I no longer feel like I have that much of an out of proportion temper. It seems to me so sad that I would say that, actually. Like so hard on myself and not entirely accurate, man, amazing. I realize too that those were words said by people who abused me several times… so it’s confusing. I wont say I didn’t make mistakes but, I now realize that the pattern of emotional abuse in my family is very complicated and sneaky. Now, after many years, I’ve realized they’re pathological narcissists, which is the reason why I don’t count on them for any of this. The way they treated me when my mother passed just did it for me and I could finally connect the dots and free myself. I now know that what I actually wanted was just nice words, nice tone, and be able to be myself: sweet as I actually am. This is, I guess, one of my most important frustrations in life, FOR SURE, I haven’t understood it all, so I must have a blindspot because I honestly think my case has been really unfortunate, and I don’t care about calling myself a victim, sometimes we have to do that in order to recognize what has happened, but at the same time, I feel so impotent.  Many times, I guess, it’s easier to believe you have something wrong you can fix, and not that actually, you’re pretty okay and people still will treat you poorly. Then, how can you fix that? Again, I of course have my mistakes, but I guess I’m too guarded now to actually go and open myself up to people who at my age are even more guarded, everyone is on a contest of who cares less about relationships and so on. Anyways, I know I can have a strong temper but it mostly comes when I’m already being abused… so, I guess sometimes it has “saved” me (not really cause they abused me more but at least I didn’t think I deserve it entirely). I realize now that there was a pattern of family emotional abuse I was suffering and many of my partners were not my allies but quite the contrary. In fact, I was speaking with my friends recently and we were commenting on how unfair it was that I had to grow up believing that, when in fact, I spent too long just defending myself, and was seldom just able to be my relaxed self without abuse coming towards me. I do not believe I have an explosive temperament anymore, it’s been ages since explosiveness has happened. But I haven’t really been able to relax entirely with someone anymore. I’m afraid I’m too guarded now, and if you ask my friends, they would say I’m the funniest, or peaceful person ever. I guess it had much to do with the abusive relationships I was in at the time, although I know some people will say I’m pretty sensitive. Back then in 2014, my god, that boyfriend I had was jealous, didn’t wwant me to wear make up, forced me to stay in a room during fights… I mean, no way. BUT anyways, I don’t want to defend everything about myself, I want to learn, to be better, to give and receive, people say I have a good heart, and I think that. I also believe I am very serious about treating people well, and I havent gotten that, many, many times. So, what would you say? How can we solve this idea of not needing people but at the same time needing them? When coaches and therapists say we should give ourselves what we havent received from others, physical affection? community? what do we do with that? I dont’ want to beg for love, or take breadcrumbing, neither I want to be alone forever. Also, what if I want to be soft but I see, with good sense, that some people wont value that. I move on, I have no control over this, but I still feel the void, I am still, not loved in that sense.

Thank you for reading again.

Hello dear Anita,

Sorry I didn’t come back. I had a difficult time integrating all of this information and in general. Maybe the whole recounting was too much before, I got overwhelmed with my life. I still am, but I appreciate all of your insight and interpretation. I have an easier time now to read what you meant. I couldn’t go through all of it as you did, but I now came back to try and do it. I don’t know if you still read this or if you’ll ever get this but I want to answer, better late than ever. Just to clarify, I was not abused by my dad in any sexual or inappropriate way. I was sort of like the victim of his own wounds and difficult with being a more emotionally present figure. As you say in your post, i am still very much confused when it comes to know “whose fault it is” when something goes wrong. I’m not trying to place all blame in anyone, but I do believe that when people are violent and gaslight, like my family, it really helps to know when I’m entitled to know I’m not in the wrong. Many spiritual gurus now will say that there is no one at blame, that there is nothing evil or good in itself, that we all are one, etc., and this is confusing for survivors of traumatic experiences that involve abuse. I know now that I am angry at both of my parents, not just my dad, because in a way he did try to protect me from himself, I think, while being emotionally unable to give the love you give to a child. He was just serious and mostly absent, angry sometimes but mostly just away. Since he had to carry that image I was never too conscious of the amount of anger I felt towards my mom mostly complaining about this but never quite leaving, and when leaving, taking me to the most violent of places, although, she always gave me the love that others didn’t. IT WAS confusing. I was angry, a lot, and my family, much to their own fitting just reproduced the idea in others that I was a difficult teenager. Whatever. The point is, yes, there is a lot a lot to heal. And I don’t even know where to start, because in fact yes, I’ve been in therapy many times but i’ve failed to find one therapist who can be “on my side” (knowing this of course means I can see my mistakes as well). They’ve had a tendency to revictimize me a lot. That I think too much, or that I victimize myself… when in fact, honestly, this whole thread of messages I’ve left here only make me realize there’s a lot of pain that I haven’t been able to heal or share with anyone, to the point I’d rather come here and not be judged. My relationships with others are indeed painful and now that my mom has passed so many things have changed… I now see so clearly how I do think she failed to protect me from stuff. I now have some legal issues with my family cause she did try to leave it all clear for me but my family has legal rights over her stuff… so uGH. It’s been exhausting. Ive even lost friends to this whole episode of my life cause I can’t think of anything else, I’m sad and surviving, I guess, and I don’t blame myself too much. I try. I just want to see myself with softness and I expect others to do the same but it’s been wild, my best  friend  said she doesn’t have any more tools to “solve” my stuff and wants to stop being friends, for instance. I have become a master at letting go. But still, it hurts, this misconception of others trying to solve things for you, not loving you or being just present and cheering you up by sharing whatever. No, people get frustrated when they see others sad. And now it’s cost me some friends, I’ve gained others, but I feel losing the only people that knew me before… Since my family did abuse me for years so, to check myself for blame is nothing new. Very sad. I totally need therapy but I’m tired of others judging me for whatever blame they always find in my story. A cycle I hope to get out of, but in the end it seems like some people do more harm than good so I guess the only therapy is exercise? Yoga? Meditation? I hope you are good, Anita. Hugs.

Dear Tee… thank you very much for your reply. Indeed, you got it, i think you understood a lot of what I’ve shared and I truly appreciate people like you taking the time to read so many of my posts that, honestly, I have only recently realized are a LOT.

To confirm the story you already got, yeah, my father passed away after having a lot of financial issues and a very serious illness that took his mobility away. He was really devastated with not being able to solve things financially, I guess, and it ended up becoming a difficult illness. Very little time before that, since we had no money at all my mom started working in whatever she could to pay for school and food but it wasn’t enough so she decided us to go to my grandmothers home, where part of that narcissistic family lives and where I think I suffered a very different kind of violence. My mom had a very big heart and did take care of my dad, even with little money we used to buy groceries for him but it was awful, sometimes I feel like we left him behind. Still, in our home we eventually didn’t have water, electricity, or food, so I guess she had to make that choice. But wow. If only I could have avoided that place.

A parenthesis: I don’t think I ever suffered from “violence” per se with my parents, only their turmoiled emotional lives together and whatever, but nothing like these people. For instance, JUST as an example, when I was like 11 years old, I  had to stay on my own with him for like 15 days, my mom had to travel to see her sister who was sick, so this was the first time ever I had to be around this father figure who was really uncomfortable for me. He was a bit of a difficult character. One day I was making him a present and he yelled at me because he saw me and thought I was about to “make a mess in the carpet”, after many other situations that week. Later we met at the kitchen and I started crying and, don’t ask me where this came from, but I told him he was damaging my self-esteem. I remember his eyes, wow, he stopped, he sat down and hugged me and started crying. He asked me to forgive him, he said something like: I’m sorry, my child, I didn’t know. I would never forgive myself for that, never allow that from anyone. We cried together and that was, in retrospective, one of THE most healing moments I can remember of my dad and that honestly has done most of my therapy regarding him, realizing he was a good man, and he would recognize when something was not okay. He totally changed the following days we had together and I saw that he made an effort to avoid this irritable side of himself. I really feel he was like a kid that day, he was so ashamed and so human. I forgave him, you know? But at the same time it was really hard to tell when he was gonna be mad at something, but I know he loved me, he had a very difficult upbringing though.

So, anyways, the difference with my uncles and all the rest of the family is that they would NEVER, EVER apologize for ANYTHING. When my father died, since they didn’t like him, they decided never to mention him, or the situation. The day my dad passed, no one spoke to me. No one gave me a hug. Nothing. I was already living in that house and they wouldn’t speak to me, I was 14 years old… They even later told my mom they couldn’t avoid being mean to me because I looked too much like my dad. They wouldn’t allow me to use the computer, or answer the phone, they’d come in angry bursts to “punish” me for things I never did… all a horrible systematic dynamic that lasted for the first years until I totally isolated and stopped having lunch with them, etc, (which was also a reason to call me a rebel, a disrespectful teen, etc.). I was fully depressed when I was 21. I don’t blame my mom, in the meantime, she worked from 8 am to 10 pm at a restaurant to be able to pay for school and later, college. But I did resent her a lot for not being more firm with them. For not seeing them for who they actually were, even after proving it once, twice and a million times. Today I have inherited the sweet problem of her having given up her rights regarding the family house. They tricked her when she was just moving in, telling her that my dad’s financial situation could affect her name and all of their shared properties so that it was better for her to not appear in one document or two. It KINDA made sense at the time but it was absurd the amount of abuse that she also received from them, making her feel like a failure, like she married someone who was beneath them and his death sort of proved it, she could only feel shame and at least feel grateful that they would take us in. So my mom was in a very vulnerable condition, BUT, there is something in me thats quite different and I value it a lot, and it’s the fact that I might have mistakes, I might be vulnerable in some ways, but I DON’T fall for certain things and it pisses me off that they did that to her. They would have never been able to do that to me, but, those documents are so so so old that cannot be reversed, now I practically depend on their good will to give me my part. And you can imagine how that’s going, they wont steal directly, but they refuse to make decisions and try to manipulate every movement related to our shared properties.

In the end, i don’t know who I am anymore, I clearly am a very traumatized person, honestly people sometimes don’t even see it and see me quite functioning, but THE moment I start talking and sharing about this even my closest friends gaslight me. like, yeah but you shouldn’t live in the past, you cannot hold so many grudges, you have to forgive, etc. HOW can you do that when no one, not even a therapist, has been there to validate and guide my way out? I’m not stupid and I know this is not true, I know I’ve been abused, but I’m no wonder woman either… I mean, I do doubt things, I havent been able to internalize that I am not deserving of that, and a lot more, like, I’m afraid to lose people again just for sharing what I’ve been through. I just lost a friend just because I got mad that, after 3 years of my mom passing, shes telling me she doesn’t see me well and that I should be worried, that I should take medicine or something because I feel empty and alone. my god. How else would i feel? I mean, if I see the history in these forums I realise there is sooo much hurt. It’s not me not being grateful… true things have happened and keep happening. It’s NOT in the past. These people keep being my one and only karma and now I’m without my mom, they one person who I truly loved from that family… so wow. Jesus I’m sorry for this very lenghty message. I really appreciate that you tell me I have been gaslighted and validate my story even without knowing me and if I don’t know you or where you are. It even feels scary to read it, and to feel the relief. I totally am not used to being told this. THANK YOU.