I don’t think I’ve ever been more exhausted in my life as I am right now in this moment. All I want to do is sleep. Being strong isn’t easy. To be honest, I haven’t felt very strong at all. Yet, I’ve done some pretty difficult things within the past two weeks and have emerged somewhat triumphant.
No, I haven’t confronted my NF. However, I was able to tell my mother and my eldest brother the truth about our NF, our family and why we have been feeling as horrible as we have for years without really knowing. To my surprise, they received the information very well. A little too well. My mother was in such shock, she was having difficulty hearing half the things I was telling her, and not because she was defending my NF, but apparently she was unaware of half the things that took place. She openly admitted to allowing my father to use her sexually because she felt indebted to him. All the while she felt used and disgusted with herself because she wasn’t even attracted to my father and my father replaced her with me because he just didn’t care about her either. Just talking about it, though uncomfortable, she admitted already feeling a little freedom.
Talking to my brother was a whole bunch of emotions combined, it left me feeling emotionally spent. I showed my brother the website I’d gotten my information and walked through every characteristic of a narcissistic parent and how they control their children. Between the two of us sharing memories and stories, our NF matched every single thing on the list. By the time we hit Gaslighting, he was on his feet in a mess of tears, anguish and rage. “Are you fu**ing kidding?!” He screamed. “I have felt insane my entire life and he was the reason?! And all this time he made me feel like I was out of my mind?! And we were punished for it! I have attempted suicide three times in the past year. I am always drunk and I even allowed myself to be taken advantage of by a man. I was so numb, I didn’t even care even though it hurt like hell.”
He walked to the next room a mess, but grateful. I ran after him in tears and hugged him, apologizing profusely for hitting him with too much information at once. He took my face in his hands so gently and thanked me over and over again. The sadness and horror of it all hurt unbearably, but he was so thankful to have an answer. He realized that for too long he had been my NF’s little bulldog that was ready to strike on command at our NF’s will. And when I told my brother that NF had proudly stated, “I could tell that kid to jump off a bridge and he wouldn’t question me one bit. He’d just do it.” It brought my brother to his knees. I explained how my NF had trapped me into signing a loan I didn’t want to sign and how he used the four of us siblings to get information on one another all our lives and then tell the unknowing siblings it was God who told him. His eyes went wide. It explained why our other brother had become such a recluse, he wouldn’t leave the house and only left his room and handful of times throughout the day.
I don’t understand. You would think such a receptive response to the truth from my brother would have given me relief. That it would have made me ecstatic. But the days after that conversation have been nothing but numb. I haven’t felt triumphant or proud. I feel hollow and emotionless.
Thankfully, it turns out the day after my brother and I met, our NF was going to try again and convince my brother to use what little credit he had to get my father a house loan. He’s been trying this for years by building our credit so he could buy himself a fancy house which he claims would be “Our inheritance”. Such bullcrap. He’s had so many thousands of dollars pass through his fingers and he’s wasted it on so much stupid crap. And now that he’s messed up and up to his eyeballs in debt, he can’t get a house on his own and he wants to use OUR credit. Deluded. To my relief, my brother outright denied helping my father. And when he used me as an example as to how my father makes promises and doesn’t keep them, apparently their conversation turned into a yelling match for almost 3 hours. My brother actually stood up and defended me. He demanded my father keep his side of the bargain and to get me off my brother’s loan as soon as possible. NF tried so many different routes of defense.
“I don’t know why she signed it. All she had to do was say no,” he said.
“All of us were too afraid to say no to you at the time and you know it. How would you feel if I asked you for all your personal information over the phone while you’re at work giving no reason as to why or what’s going on?” my brother said.
“I would have been trusting you to make a good decision and to not put me in a bad position.”
“EXACTLY! And you didn’t! You took advantage of her!”
“Now that’s crossing the line! You’re being very disrespectful right now. This is none of your business. And people should stop bi***ing and complaining about it and just deal with it.”
“Oh, so you can raise your voice at me, but I can’t do the same? You need to know every detail about all of our lives, but if I want to become involved in something, I can’t? No, not anymore. She approached you with exactly how she felt about you not even asking her permission to use her credit and all you replied with was, ‘well, you would have done it anyway.’ Get her off that loan.”
I don’t like that he outright disrespected our NF and has kinda made me finally talking to my NF a little more difficult now, but my brother stood up to him. He didn’t sign on the loan and he didn’t allow himself to be manipulated by him. My brother promised he’d get psychological help once he got back to his base and that he would make a point to take care of himself better. Whether it happens or not, he knows the truth. And if he doesn’t decide to work toward self-care, at least It was his own decision and not because he was trapped in my father’s web of guilt, lies and self-condemnation.
Then last night, I actually got into a fight with my future mother in law. And all out verbal fight. My fiancé has recently been under a huge amount of stress because of his job and decided to numb himself with way too many anxiolytics and alcohol and got really sick. So, as any good partner should, I began taking care of him. His mother couldn’t stop yelling about how no one talks to her and how lonely she feels while I’m rushing about to get my fiancé what he needs while he’s vomiting and defecating on himself at the same time. I couldn’t help myself. I turned around and said, “Mom, please don’t be mad and I mean no disrespect, but please don’t make this about yourself right now.” I gave her a hug and kiss right after and then rushed over to my fiancé to get him water and help him stay clean while he vomited uncontrollably. His mother walks in and he asks her to leave because he’s so embarrassed. He tells her he loves her and she turns around and begins slamming doors, calling me a “bi***” as she raves on to herself, but loud enough so I can hear. I couldn’t take it anymore. Once my fiancé finally settled down and fell asleep I asked her to please stop slamming doors and she turns on me and starts spewing the most hateful things at me. She got in my face and told me no one had ever said such a thing to her in her life and that it was the most disrespectful thing I could have done.
I was done. I began sobbing. My fiancé was drenched with sweat, his skin was cold but he was finally settling out and his stomach was fine. I just cleaned her son from feces and vomit and had him comfortable instead of on the floor in a messy pool of excrement, and she was calling me a bi***. I screamed about how much I loved her, how I reassured her with a hug and a kiss and kept her updated with everything he wouldn’t talk to her about. But she was so fixated on how she couldn’t help, it didn’t matter. I was the enemy.
She apologized later, and I know I should be over it, but the truth is…I’m not. I have such resentment and anger toward her and my father. I have watched her press my fiance’s buttons until he cracks and then call him the most horrible names for exploding. The one thing that pushed him over the edge last night was when he mentioned how close he and I were to getting a house and all she replied with was, “But if you leave, I’ll lose my house…” She also has had thousands of dollars in her hands and spent it on stupid crap instead on getting her finances right. Her family are millionaires and they dislike her so much, despite the fact that they could pay for her medical bills and rescue her house by imply giving up one piece of their expensive jewelry, they throw her crumbs of 50 bucks here and there just to shut her up. She is one of the most selfish, deluded people I’ve ever met aside from my father and I hate that I’ve grown to love someone else who abuses those they love.
I am so exhausted….I want to sleep for a long, long time and I don’t care when I wake up. I want to be numb. And I want to stop dreaming of my NF every night. I want to be free of control and manipulation by those who are meant to guide us and offer encouragement for growing instead of guilt because they feel left behind. I will be a quarter of a century old this year and my fiancé will be 30 in the spring. It’s time to move forward and leave this horrid negativity behind. I am so done. So, so done. I don’t know how much longer I can do this.
Any thoughts, experiences or opinions you may have, please feel free to share them in the comments below. Thank you, once again, for reading.
Write the Past...Dream the Future. 