Addiction

We all remember that scene, don't we?  He just can't stop, even though it is hurting him.  The pain of withdrawal from anything may seem unbearable, but it's nothing compared to the long term damage the addiction can do to your life.  Suffer withdrawals, or lose your arm?  What would you give up just to delay the discomfort of being separated from your drug of choice?  What would you endure to stave off the confrontation of the feelings you are trying so desperately to bury beneath the haze of whatever addiction you are layering over them?  Do they ever stay buried?  You run away from the pain right into the arms of something which will surely kill you.  And I don't just mean drugs.

I've confronted some hard truths lately about myself, and about my family.  I'm not here to sling mud.  I recognize that the only person I have any hope of changing is myself, and I have enough problems to focus on without diverting attention to the problems of others, making excuses, or placing blame.  I was thinking about that last night.  I don't think I realized how really super intensely upset and hurt I was about the books.  You know the books.  The ones that were sent anonymously to my ex-husband's house...addressed to "Christine Colter-Lyon-Hunt-Monterrosas-Ortiz....Kacos"  "You May Be A Narcissist If..." "Loving the Self-Absorbed" "Identifying and Understanding the Narcissistic Personality".  

Why does it bother me?  I'm not too proud to admit I have problems, and I'm thankful if people bring them (gently) to my attention so that I have an opportunity to address them.  I don't think the intention of sending these books to me was to help, though.  I think it was passive aggressive judgement.  Criticism.  A way to wound me on purpose.  It stung.  I felt judged, less than, not good enough.  I felt like there was someone out there who really saw me this way, and I must have done something really horrible to leave  that kind of impression in someone's mind.  I must have failed someone.  What kind of person could I be if they think this about me?  The worst part, though.  I can't figure out if it was my mom or my dad, but I know that these books originated from a family member.

WHY does that irritate me so much?  First of all, they left themselves anonymous, so I have no opportunity to respond, seek to understand, or defend myself.  And even though I KNOW, in my heart, that it was one of my parents...I can't prove it.  So if I go ranting at them about it, I look like the crazy one.  The paranoid one.  They'll deny it, and I'll make a fool of myself.  Even though I know.  But the worst part is this -- HOW THE FUCK DO THEY THINK NARCISSISTS ARE CREATED?  Um, pot, MEET KETTLE.  Tree, apple.  If I AM a narcissist -- do they think this magically happened?  The origins are in CHILDHOOD.  Your motherfucking PARENTS.  So that would be like my mother slicing me across the face with a butcher knife, leaving a scar.  Then sending me, anonymously, a mocking photograph of my disfiguration -- which she GAVE me -- with "Scarface" or some other insult scrawled across it.  YOU GAVE ME THIS.  Now you ridicule me for it.  How fucking DARE you.

And I'm not upset that they screwed up.  It's a cycle, which I am well aware that I am unfortunately in the beginning of continuing with my own children.  I can't change what happened.  My parents can't take it back, and neither can their parents.  What's done is done.  So where does my power lie now?  In breaking the cycle.  I will not leave the same scar on my children, rendering them unable to have meaningful relationships, afraid of love for the rest of their lives.  I don't want this for my children.  This impossibility of getting close.  This aversion to vulnerability.  This agonizing outsider-ness, this breaking of your own heart.

I don't know what I have, or what's wrong with me, or why I can't be happy.  I don't know what's real and what's not.  What's paranoia and what's intuition.  What's giving up and what's protection.  What comes from fear and what comes from wisdom.  Who really cares and who never will.  I am locked, trapped, in this endless fruitless cycle.  And do I blame my parents?  NO.  They did the best they could.  They only did what they know.  How could I be upset, when my own child is on a path to be ten times MORE fucked up because of ME?  It. Needs. To. Stop.  But I must admit, it really burns inside being judged by them.  My own parents.

Haven't I had enough of this?  This ridicule, this not good enough, this criticism, this tearing down, this shutting out?  They have plotted against me behind my back to try to take my son.  (My mom, Blair, and Rachel).  My mom helped pay for that lawyer.  I saw the forms they signed that said I was still in an abusive relationship when I was not.  I heard my mom lie to me, even though I KNEW the truth and I begged her to be honest.  She still could not.  I have endured the gaslighting from my mother, seeing something with my own two eyes only to be told it didn't happen, like when Tristan was being a brat and she grabbed his foot and squeezed, and I SAW it, and he CRIED, and he TOLD me she had done it and she only looked me right in the face and told me IT DIDN'T FUCKING HAPPEN.  Can you believe this????  Then I go on to date these guys who do the same goddamn thing, all this crazymaking, what the hell did I do to deserve this?  I have listened to my mother call me a whore at age 13 simply because I expressed an interest and natural curiosity for sex. 

And my father?  I have gone two years without even being acknowledged by him, because I was dating a guy who didn't treat me right.  Tell me how much sense THAT makes.  You love your daughter so much that you'll cut her out of your life like she doesn't exist for making a choice you don't agree with?  I don't buy it!  It was more as punishment, to teach me a lesson for dare defying his edicts for my life.  I have had my own father walk past me in a room as if I weren't even there.  To look right through me, as if I were an apparition.  To jet outside of my house like his ass was on fire to avoid hugging me, only to look out my window to see him in the driveway hugging my sister.  

I see it in my mother.  I see it in my father.  I see it in my brother, and especially his wife.  I don't see it in my sister, but she went the opposite direction -- being my parents' cherished, obedient, "good" one.  She did what they wanted.  She made them look good.  I sat on the bed in Mackinac Island while my mom sat on the other side of my sister and asked Stephanie to take a picture of just the two of them, oblivious to the fact that her other daughter was RIGHT THERE, completely ignoring me.  And no, she never took a picture with just me.  Look:

And you wonder why I feel rejected, and unlovable, and worthless.  And you wonder why I go on to seek relationships with those who can not love me.  What else do I KNOW?