Re: raised in the darkness

[Guest guest]

It touched my heart too- and Annie is right- you can't change the past-but this

present moment and your future can be filled with lots of light! I hope you find

such peace and hope and you keep moving from the darkness you once experienced.

malinda

> >

> > i was thinking tonight about how i was raised and the effect the extreme

narcissism of both parents has had on me. I was watching " Last Chance Highway "

on Animal Planet and it was very overwhelming to me watching this real estate

agent sweep into a pound in Mississippi and rescue about 20 dogs from death row,

and adopt them all out. I really cried alot watching this, because it just moved

me so much to think that there are people in the world who live for greater

causes and the darkness of the borderline/narcissism that I grew up in cast such

focus on the shortcomings of everyone in our family. there was constant

criticism and dissatisfaction with everything in our family. there was constant

grief and arguments and negativity. it was just a perfect storm of every

negative emotion known to man all the time.

> >

> > I watched this show tonight and I felt robbed because I never knew people

lived this way. I never knew that people gave of themselves so freely growing

up. i learned that everything was horrible and terrible, and that my family was

very put-upon and unfortunate. I grew up believing that my family was poor, and

it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I learned that we were in no way poor.

We were not rich and my father had a working class occupation but he was paid

well. His personality disorder kept him from staying at any one job for more

than a few years and we moved alot. he was self-employed for a while but during

that time he made good money.

> >

> > I am just so in touch tonight with how my parents painted literally

EVERYTHING black, not just me and sometimes the other kids. The whole world was

an awful place. And they are still this way. And they mistreat each other on a

daily basis. I grew up being told that my family was literally 'cursed' and

nothing would ever work out for us.

> >

> > It's striking to me because it made it clear how this had affected me not

just on a relationship level but also in regard to my outlook on the whole

world. I was taught to have a negative perspective and outlook on life. i was

taught that things were bad and would only get worse. I was taught not to try,

because if I did manage not to fail, something unforseen would come along and

mess things up anyway. In short I was so full of these negative aspersions that

it would have never occurred to me to live a life like this woman on the show,

who said she spent almost $80,000 of her own money last year paying vet bills

for rescued animals. It's like a paradigm shift....I feel so cheated, really,

that I was not taught to look outside myself and my own little world and see the

big picture. I couldn't look for some way in which I could help the world to be

a better place, because I was quite literally told that I was useless, no good,

a complete screw up, and would never succeed at anything. And those were some of

the nicer things that have been said by the parental units. They wanted to make

me afraid of my own power because for whatever reason it scared them. so they

taught me to be powerless and ineffective. just seeing someone like this woman

on the show using what little power she does have to make the world a better

place and affect so many lives if really a contrast to the darkness I grew up

in.

> >

>

[Guest guest]

I love the phrasing 'mini-cult' that was definitely my family, and we were

raised in the church so tenets of our religion operated to reinforce the

mini-cult, making it a cult within a cult as well. so the only 'trustworthy'

(according to parental units) feedback from the outside world I got reinforced

the darkness. it's so bizarre to grow up living in the darkness all the while

being told that the outside world is the darkness and evil and bad and

threatening.

at least I know now it wasn't true.

> >

> > i was thinking tonight about how i was raised and the effect the extreme

narcissism of both parents has had on me. I was watching " Last Chance Highway "

on Animal Planet and it was very overwhelming to me watching this real estate

agent sweep into a pound in Mississippi and rescue about 20 dogs from death row,

and adopt them all out. I really cried alot watching this, because it just moved

me so much to think that there are people in the world who live for greater

causes and the darkness of the borderline/narcissism that I grew up in cast such

focus on the shortcomings of everyone in our family. there was constant

criticism and dissatisfaction with everything in our family. there was constant

grief and arguments and negativity. it was just a perfect storm of every

negative emotion known to man all the time.

> >

> > I watched this show tonight and I felt robbed because I never knew people

lived this way. I never knew that people gave of themselves so freely growing

up. i learned that everything was horrible and terrible, and that my family was

very put-upon and unfortunate. I grew up believing that my family was poor, and

it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I learned that we were in no way poor.

We were not rich and my father had a working class occupation but he was paid

well. His personality disorder kept him from staying at any one job for more

than a few years and we moved alot. he was self-employed for a while but during

that time he made good money.

> >

> > I am just so in touch tonight with how my parents painted literally

EVERYTHING black, not just me and sometimes the other kids. The whole world was

an awful place. And they are still this way. And they mistreat each other on a

daily basis. I grew up being told that my family was literally 'cursed' and

nothing would ever work out for us.

> >

> > It's striking to me because it made it clear how this had affected me not

just on a relationship level but also in regard to my outlook on the whole

world. I was taught to have a negative perspective and outlook on life. i was

taught that things were bad and would only get worse. I was taught not to try,

because if I did manage not to fail, something unforseen would come along and

mess things up anyway. In short I was so full of these negative aspersions that

it would have never occurred to me to live a life like this woman on the show,

who said she spent almost $80,000 of her own money last year paying vet bills

for rescued animals. It's like a paradigm shift....I feel so cheated, really,

that I was not taught to look outside myself and my own little world and see the

big picture. I couldn't look for some way in which I could help the world to be

a better place, because I was quite literally told that I was useless, no good,

a complete screw up, and would never succeed at anything. And those were some of

the nicer things that have been said by the parental units. They wanted to make

me afraid of my own power because for whatever reason it scared them. so they

taught me to be powerless and ineffective. just seeing someone like this woman

on the show using what little power she does have to make the world a better

place and affect so many lives if really a contrast to the darkness I grew up

in.

> >

>