At some point you start to realize that you are actually the parent to your abuser, and probably always have been. The primitive thinking and behavior consistently shown by them requires a deft touch to navigate. My mother had Borderline Personality Disorder, and the classic explanation of a living with that is “walking on eggshells.” It is a good analogy. You spend much of your time tiptoeing along, attempting to make sure every solitary decision is the correct one. In spite of these efforts, the egg will crack, and you’ll be left swimming in a pool of slime. Mom had no rhyme or reason to her madness. She’d just snap. Suddenly. Often without a clear trigger or motive. It’s fascinating how she could go from jovial and gregarious in one instant to seething with rage the next.
But inside she was mostly a child. Because of the abuse my mom suffered at an early age, her psyche almost literally fractured in half. Her brain was unable to process anything as other than black and white. There was no grey area, no nuance. Things were good (like my brother) or bad (like me). Generally, there was no crossing the divide, but sometimes she’d switch someone or something around to the other team. She did this with my grandfather in her later years, I think around the time he died.
I was just reading an article about “Man on Fire” syndrome, which is a disorder that causes constant nerve pain and discomfort. Something like the painful tingling you get in your extremities just before frostbite sets in, only all over your body and constant. Sounds positively horrendous. The good news is scientists have discovered a link to a particular gene, and so far it looks promising that by regulating this gene they’ll be able to stop the pain.
Mom had a “Man on Fire” of the brain. Call it “Mom on Fire.” She was in a constant state of pain, of fear, of conflict, of chaos, of sadness, of anger — all sorts of negative emotions constantly flooding out of her like a firehose, and no way to regulate any of it.
So as kids, we had to be the regulators. When her self-esteem was low, she’d humiliate others, usually me. If she felt wronged (which was often), she’d lash out in a fit of rage. If she was sad, we needed to be extra kind and thoughtful. If she was feeling productive, it was our job to drop everything, pitch in and help her. Because she didn’t control any of her feelings, emotions, or consequent actions, we were tasked with soothing her broken spirit. We became the figurative and sometimes literal punching bag for her angst. We were the sounding boards for her wild musings and age-inappropriate conversations. It was all about mom, all the time. Not only were all of our thoughts and emotions irrelevant, if we happened to actually have any of our own feelings we were selfish little brats that didn’t care about mom.
Since dad was the poster child of co-dependency, he fed this beast on a regular basis. She berated him constantly, humiliating him and emasculating him on an hourly basis. It didn’t matter if he was there or not. When he was home, he’d sit there meekly, apologetically. Always searching for her approval, always ready to jump at her next demand. When she would target her rage at me, he’d eagerly join in on the attack, simultaneously glad that it wasn’t directed at him, and eager to prove his worth as a partner in crime once again. And so it was with everything. When she’d manufacture ridiculous accusations about his family, he’d take her side and kick everyone to the curb for a while. Mom was always the damsel in distress, and dad was the White Knight riding in to save the day.
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