Step One

Step One:  We admitted we were powerless over food - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Journaling prompts from Gentle Path through the Twelve Steps.

History of Abuse

I never used to think of myself as having been abused. But I was, in 'small' ways.

My mother is a narcissist.  If your mother isn't a narcissist, this might be hard to understand.  If you've never known a narcissist, it's probably impossible to understand.  Everything is about my mother.  When I was a child, if I got hurt (physically or emotionally), my pain was unimportant - what mattered was how my mother felt about it.  She does the same thing with my kids.. if one of them falls down or something, she'll say, "Oh, I'm so upset you got hurt!  I hate to see you hurt!  That scared me so much!"  Similarly, if I had a triumph, it wasn't because I had tried hard or was skilled or lucky or whatever, it was about her.  My grades weren't proof of my hard work, but of hers.  Or she'd even brag through genetics, if she hadn't actually had a hand in what I'd done.  Growing up, receiving those messages, I felt completely unseen, unheard, and unimportant.

Beyond that, she made me feel as if I was never good enough - I could never live up to her expectations.  I have a vivid memory of doing an illustration of a book report that my mother didn't think was good enough.  She drew her own version and had me pass it off as my own.  When I got it back from the teacher, graded, there was a note on it that said, "I don't think you drew this."  That's just one of many, many examples.  She would have me rewrite homework and thank you notes over and over again because it wasn't neat enough.  She was the same with housework.  Everything had to be spotless, and if you left something out where you shouldn't, you got screamed at.  She would also talk to me about how my father's side of the family didn't like us, how they spoiled their other children but not my father, and how they would take their other grandchildren on vacation, lavish them with gifts, and take them on special outings.  All of which further reinforced the idea that there was obviously something wrong with me, that I wasn't good enough nor deserving of their love.

As a narcissist, my mom was always emotionally unavailable.  In addition, she was frequently 'too busy' - with housework, actual work, daycare kids she watched, my sister, etc.  When I was a teenager, I would wait up late for her to come home from work.  She threw herself into her work, using at as a way to escape (remember, she is also an addict).  I remember her saying things like, "You make me wish I was at work!"

I also had very little privacy - Mom loved to snoop.  She would even keep things I had thrown out.  During my bridal shower, she pulled out a poem I had written when I was 12 to a boy I'd had a crush on.  She wanted to read it to all of the guests - mostly people I worked with.  It was humiliating and I started to cry - something I never do in front of other people.  She had no boundaries.  She asked me to keep secrets about what she had bought or what we had eaten.  She confided in me about my parents' money troubles and told me all about fights she had with my father.

The confusing thing is that narcissists are so good at getting people to buy their bullshit stories.  Everyone - family, friends, co-workers, etc - has thought of my mother as generous, selfless, kind to a fault, and so on.  The persona she has created began to slip after her health problems began - but I only truly came to see it within the last two years, thanks to a lot of therapy and self-discovery.

Serenity Prayer:

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.