I treated life like a joke for a long while to cope with what i had experienced but life is not a joke really, atleast not for everyone else The scared teenager of a powerful operation still resides in my body. I know i have to step things up. A balanced and a free thinking mind can be a powerful force.

Emotional distance from things that have hurt you is a good thing. It can take a long while for your mind to recover. It is helpful to have confidence in yourself, and to feel like you deserve happiness. Plus, you get to define what happiness means to you -- not some church.

Physical distance has been good but the emotional hurt still resides. It is with me wherever i go it seems even with help. The day will come when i have the courage to never see my father again for good. This step is necessary if i am to have any chance at a real life. The damage that individual has done to me in a lifetime is indescribable.

Maybe it would help to stop seeing him as *dad* -- a word fraught with meaning -- and just see him as an ordinary man. As a teacher I have often observed that most people have kids, including some people that make marginal or even really unsuitable parents.

If you think about it, people get more training to be drivers than they do to be parents. And look at how people drive!

You are right i have to see the guy as an ordinary person not my father. Somehow i have to make my mind do this. Just see him as a random stranger eventually.

Yah. What summer wrote is true.

I starting referring to my mother by her first name rather than as my mother. I call her by her first name sometimes. It's a boundary that I control.

So calling your mother by her first name only had helped you? I have never called my father by his first name before but i think it is worth a shot. Just call him william from now on. Little william.

When you think about him, or when you talk about him, try calling him "William."

When I speak to my mother, I usually call her "Mom." Right now we have a deal to speak up when either of us is getting angry. It's working for now. I haven't done this recently, but at times that she was knowingly crossing a line and didn't care at. all., I'd say, "Alright, now, Lou Lou." <-- that's her nickname.

That's my way of saying, "I'm an adult. Take notice."

Please keep in mind our ages

My mother had me when she was 23. When I was about 40 (2006), I stopped talking to her. About a year later, we starting talking again, but the old problems were always there. When I was 45, I packed a suitcase and caught several buses to Seattle. I didn't talk to my mother again until 2015 when I saw her at my kid's college graduation. We stopped talking again until about five months ago.

It is very, very hard to navigate and negotiate an adult relationship with your parents. The same goes for your own adult children.

Keep up with the therapy. It helps a lot!

My father is my biggest hurdle. The guy can reduce me to a young kid so fast its crazy but at least i can recognize it better now how he can make my brain switch to thinking i am 5 years old again. I will start calling him william full time even in my mind and see if it works. The guy used to silence me and put me in place very easily when i was under his roof. Now that i am not under his roof i still feel like i am running away from the guy. Tired of this running away feeling all the time. No one thinks i can pull off being an adult outside religion and outsude of family. Even i doubt myself. I got mentally fatigued being around them and that operation for so long.

When I was 45, my mother killed my cats (long, horrible story). I saw my head doctor the next day and he told me, "Beth, you're 45 years old. You will never please your family. But if you think about it, I bet you can please yourself."

I was headed to Seattle two weeks after that session.

Things were kinda crappy - I was homeless and things got worse before they got better. I need a clean break. I didn't tell them I had left until the bus was in Ohio. And I emailed them. I told them to leave me alone. Period.

So I had to process three dead pets, running away, getting my shit together in a new city I'd never visited. I was scared and in a fog for awhile. Many kind people helped me. Emotionally I kind of rebuilt myself; I'm still in the process of doing it. It was easier to process family crap that had happened in the past when no new family crap was being heaped on it.

I worry that there will be more family crap now that my mother and I are speaking again. My father and I have been okay for the past three years. I usually call on Sundays at halftime. I forgot to call him for a couple of weeks, and when I did, he told me that he was worried that I was angry with him. That broke my heart. I told him that I wasn't, and that I wouldn't go silent if I were angry and that I hoped he wouldn't either.

Again, our ages matter. I've reached a point in my life where I'm looking back and taking stock. They're also looking back and taking stock. We need to stop wasting time with dumb things, because our mortality is more real to us.

I keep mentioning our ages because it took me forty-freaking-five YEARS to start getting my shit together. FORTY FIVE! Man, that sucks! I don't believe in god/s, so this is it for me. This life is my life.

Gah. I'm sorry. I don't have advice I guess. I'm working these things out, too.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2020 11:50PM by Beth.

I think i get what you are saying. My family crap is more minimal now since i have distanced myself but i am still rebuilding myself emotionally and physically. Its literally taking forever that i lose hope that i will ever be rebuilt enough to have a real life(wife and kids). Being around family for a lot of my life put me into an emotional whirlwind and i was a constant punching bag for them until i had no self-esteem or personality left. I know exactly what my friend meant when he said before he died, " i know longer know who i am, why i am here, or what i stand for". The guy was spread thin like i was. I am just doing my best to survive and not end up six feet under. But i want to thrive but i do not know how to make the jump from surviving to thriving. Sometimes i think i am to beat down from my life to make that jump but i don't know. I compare myself to others too much. One of my weaknesses. It seems like life is easier for others by default than my life ever was. I still don't know who i really am. I still don't know what i actually want at a restaurant on the menu. My self-worth had been so low that what i ordered never mattered. It was just food to put in a body to keep surviving. I don't actually know a lot of my likes and dislikes. These things never mattered to the religion so i never figured it out. All that matters to the religion or cult is that your real identity gets destroyed and you submit and give all you have to the operation. This is the main thing that i learned. My real identity 'adam' did not matter from day one. They do not want you to be an individual with your own mind and your own thoughts. This is the primary goal of a cult. Erase the real identity and create a drone slave. This is the key to one day being an actual free man with your own mind. When i was young i was catching on to what they were doing but i had no clue how to ever escape and live a real life. I still don't know how to be a real human with a real personality. How do you bring back a personality that was destroyed by a cult? Years and years of therapy? Maybe. I do know no matter what they tried to do that i am a warrior that they could not quite break entirely. They almost did and maybe they still might beat me because they were adults trying to indocrinate with literally the same crap over and over. Thats another thing about being brainwashed. The material never changes and it is literally on repeat for decades. And you find yourself handing over your money without question without ever knowing why because jesus said so or something like that so it has to be done. But you definitely get your brain sacrificed in the process so any attempt to live a life on the outside of the cult is difficult as hell to maintain. Your brain gets so used to being brainwashed that it is literally what your brain expects and all your brain knows. If you can break out of this indoctrination pattern that is on repeat and heal your mind somehow and claim your real identity and individuality i think you have won and beat the cult literally with literal effort of the mind. I don't know if this makes any sense. I have sat through a ton of indoctrination sessions from as young as i can remember and i always was thinking what are these old guys in suits really up to. Something is not right here and i can't be the only one feeling this way. These guys are trying to pull the wool over our eyes and leaving out the real stuff(temple rituals) from the children by design. You show me the temple rituals at 4 years old and i would just laugh and walk away but its harder after decades of brainwashing about how the temple is so great and magnificent and to then expose the rituals to the brainwashed adult and the adult accepts it without laughing and walking away because they are now too scared shitless to. One day at a time beth i guess. I'm supposed to be 36 years old and i still partly think like a 14 year old. They say the only cure for my mind is therapy to make my brain mature into adulthood completely. My brain stagnated because of abuse which is accurate. I did not know what my brain did at the time but it did freeze and did not mature into adulthood normally as everyone else's mind had. The religion struck real fear in me to stay silent as i know many others have stayed silent in my similar scenario. Did we all keep the secret that this operation was abusive as hell to keep its fake perfect one true church persona intact? Yep. To expose abuse was to literally challenge God himself and his flaw to prevent such abuse. To tell a mormon that god was not perfect and we all knew it would be heresy it seemed. But oh well. God's inability to prevent abuse may cost a lot of us a real life. It's a big deal but not to them. Cover us up and sweep us all under the rug as if we never existed or never mattered. Discard the abused and keep the cash flow coming in. This is their motto. But the warrior is not dead. But they may wish that i was. Because we both can not co-exist. One good(myself) and one evil(themselves on top of 100 billion dollars). I don't know. It's best if i don't have to think about them anymore. Never look back until i see a couple of weirdo missionaries on the street to remind me of the hell i once knew. Well happy new year. 2020 will be a good year for the warrior and all survivalist warriors. They only had the advantage because we were kids at the time of manipulating us. But as adult survivors that they could not bury we are rebuilding ourselves slowly. Not all of us died and kept our mouths shut about what we had endured. I still see someone in the mirror. He's tired but he is still someone.

Adam, viewing life as a joke is in many instances pretty healthy. Humor, or the ability to see humor in pain, is a high-level psychological defense.

It's certainly good to re-evaluate your life and attitudes frequently, but don't undervalue what may well be a healthy way to deal with problems.

I see. So it is not all that bad of a thing.

Your life sounds like a real mind game. Don’t let the Mormons win, they are idiots. But their beliefs are sooo funny. You should be able to laugh at them. Some of the GAs are comedic geniuses. Experts at unintentional parody.

I think the late Sean Stephenson gave a good TED talk on your situation: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VaRO5-V1uK0

Its a huge mind game in my head babylon. Psychologist once said the religiousity in my head is more than the average person. I actually thought everyones brain had this much religiousness in it but it is definitely not true. I have decades of brainwashed shit in my head that i don't even know how to deal with. New memories come up every day it seems.

He is right

"free thinking mind" this is something we all have a right to. Nobody takes that away from anyone. It's important to take ownership of the decisions we make. I try not to blame mormonism for my mental processes but believe things according to logic facts and reason.

The night my "husband" called our twins to wish them Happy Birthday after he had left a few weeks earlier, my niece was burning his picture and his boyfriend's picture out of a Disney photo of us on Splash Mountain. We were laughing SO HARD and their dad wasn't pleased that we were having a jolly old time while he was off in CA.

My brother was visiting one day (he had lived with us for a short time, too, so my kids knew him well) and my kids were giving their dad dating advice as he was just about to go on a date with a new guy and my brother was in shock, but loved it. He thought it was a healthy way to deal with things. Their dad doesn't have much of a sense of humor, but he does mention their "real father" now and then, Sean Connery, as they had picked him out sometime as being their real father just as a joke.

We could not have survived without dark humor.

My older sister and I have some HUGE issues and I decided I could do kind things for her, but I don't have to be her friend. I took in her son recently for a few months. I send her things now and then. She was the one real family member at my daughter's wedding. It meant a lot to me.

If you can't completely cut off your father, keep your distance. My sister lives near Twin Falls and I'm in Logan, Utah, so I don't see her.

Therapy has saved me. You know that my gay husband lives in the downstairs of the house I saved after he left us. We are best friends. I NEVER thought this was possible years ago.

It does get better. Mormonism did a lot of damage to my life. It still can trigger my PTSD, but I have a good life most days. I do have to admit that I'm ready to go any time except my kids "need" me. I don't know that they do. Maybe they don't, but my dogs do need me. I'll stick around as long as I can. I'm a pessimist, so that is where my attitude towards life comes from.

My father is hugh jackman. The wolverine i always wished my father had been. Therapy might be saving me. Dating for real again seems hard though. I thought i would never let anyone get close to me again but that seems like it would be miserable for me if i keep staying alive. You can only pity yourself for so long as i have until you just say screw it.

Pity or mourn?

You're allowed to mourn your jacked up childhood/life. It's not self-indulgent to acknowledge that life has been jacked up.

You look that life in the eye and see it for what it was. Little by little you start to create a new life. The old one never disappears, but the new one starts to drown the old on out. The new one wins. Just keep at it, and don't beat yourself up when the old life and the old ways of thinking pop up and say HELLO!

A lot of times people tell me to get over [it]. There is no getting over it. Ever. All there is is putting it in a different perspective and trying to rob it of its power by building something else - something that's mine.

I'm sorry to be so abstract.

Here's how a friend of mine sees it. She calls the negative thoughts about ourselves, the ones that were implanted by others, "The Committee." The Committee tells you that you aren't worth anything and you never will be. What to do? You fire that damn committee! Sometimes they need to be fired a lot. But fire them we do.

It was jacked up. My memories of my upbringing are so hazy and strange and bizarre. My brain did some crazy shiz to protect itself that not even i fully grasp yet. I didn't have a clue what i had been born into. First memories are being in this operation. Born in hell with the cards stacked against me literally. Everyone is saying 'its true all the time' but i just said to myself how is it true and how come we never are allowed to question or investigate this thing. This monster called mormonism that infects the brain with constant rituals and constant indoctrination and constant singing and constant meetings. So repetitive my brain still hurts from it all. Neverending until my brain just stopped thinking or working or something. And then i try to block out the memories with addictions and self hate patterns. They jacked my brain good. Most of the ideas are not even mine but what they put in there growing up. What the committee implanted in my brain basically to try to make me a slave and never leave their control so they could make endless money off of me till the daay i die. I want to believe it gets better. I don't think i have stopped trying to improve into a real man not a scared kid in this body.

fell apart. They seem to think that the traumas we've been through are easy to get over. I had to get a therapist and he has been my what? I've been seeing him for over 20 years. Thank god or whomever that he hasn't moved away or retired (he is a little bit younger than I am).

I still STRUGGLE big time if you guys haven't noticed with my life. Many people need things from me that I don't have to give. I've been going through a whole new set of WTF since I lost my job last fall. I'm trying to regroup, but people keep hitting me when I'm down, won't give me the space I need, always needing, needing, needing from me. And I long to escape to be by myself with my dogs.

I don't remember, Beth, you telling us about your mother killing your cats. I say anybody who killed my dogs would be dead. I don't know how you can ever get over that. Knowing my parents, they would never have done that to me no matter how crazy things could get in my family while they were still alive (and still do). I'd just like people in my life to let me live.

I hate to say it, Warrior, but life is a constant battle it seems. Like I've said many times, I just want life to be LEVEL. No highs, no lows. Just no more crap. I wish just ONE DAY would go by without something crazy happening. I'm rather broken down right now and so I tend to have crazy things happen. My therapist says it is "full catastrophe living." There is a book about it. I mean, I spilled diet coke into my router/modem, which I can't live without. Whoops! There went $160 a week after Christmas. I start doing these things several times a day. I better not drive until I regroup.

But, Warrior, many of us get it. We've struggled with our own demons. I hate that I've dumped the kind of trauma on my kids that they have been through. Pretty sad when you can't save your children from their own father's actions. He abandoned them almost entirely for YEARS.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2020 10:40AM by cl2.

I think life will always be a battle for people like us no matter what we do. I actually think we are really battling and not made-up self-sabotage battling. I was people watching the other day watching them going into the store all peaceful and holding hands and i wonder to myself "why am i different from the average person CLEARLY no matter what i do or how much therapy i do".
So i have turned my focus solely to people who are like me that can feel energy like i can. Like have some kind of connection to nature in some way. Other empaths or warriors. I have tried to avoid these people because they freak me out but i am like them and feel less like a freak when i am around them. I am what they say a closeted empath that is too afraid to come out of the closet so i understand the struggle of a gay guy scared to come out of the closet. I see us empaths as freaks but we do seem to have abilities that other humans do not have. Some empaths are tarot card readers and crystal pushers and stuff like that. I don't want to be labeled a freak or a mutant by society because i feel i have been made fun of enough for this lifetime. I definitely have a weird connection with the sun and the universe no matter how hard i try to fit in or be normal. The warrior definitely is not normal as we all know. I break no laws but am still seen as crazy for just breathing but oh well screw it. I figure if i find more people like me like this class i am going to go to next week then i will not feel so alone. Not feeling alone and finding a real tribe is a big deal to me right now.

You know exactly which slots to put everything in I would say, warrior. Valuable way to think. Just the way you choose your moniker for here makes me want to identify with you.

Time doesn't heal--as they say--- but time does take that which caused pain, that which hurt, and turns it to understanding--not for everyone but for people like you. Past pain can be a useful tool, again with time.

Unfortunately, time takes time. :)


You can decorate your scars any way you want I have found with my own.

Warrior, please read Done & Done’s comment on Beth’s “I’m Lonely” thread, especially his quote about the cash register. I have shared that with a few friends who have, like me, taped it on thier ice box.

That one comment has been life-changing for a few of us.

I liked summer's thoughts on ending up a parent versus being taught to drive.

My own secret is that I feared and hated my father for most of my youth. He was the most beloved bishop the ward had ever had for a dozen years of that youth and did my mission interview. Never really had the time to just be Dad as on top of that we built a new chapel during that time and I mean "We" built it.

I call most of my youth Grand Theft Mormon.

I had to hide my true self and live as part of a family that was even too TBM for the other TBMs. The "Grand Theft Mormon" was not the tithing but of my personality, my growth. I was kept in tact in practically an embryonic state. I was terrified of cracking my own shell and finding that who I really was might as well hop a train straight to outer darkness. My only escape was riding my horse deep into the hills and allowing the fantasies of my mind to keep me sane. I dared glimpse at who I really was in that loneliness on my galloping horse.

I wasn't easy. Dad had been the popular jock and war hero and now he had me. He claimed he never had any idea I was gay, but, uh . . . He hadn't a clue how to relate to me, or, value me. He was a very good man, though. In the end we had a wonderful relationship and I came to realize he too had been a victim of Grand Theft Mormon. But like Summer said, they teach you to drive but parenting is on your own. The Mormons do teach you how to be a Mormon parent though and that is not such a good thing.

But there I go again talking about myself but that's all I have to offer.

Obedience Obedience Obedience is the opposite of teaching, of nurturing. Obedience shows the "only way." Real teaching is showing options, illustrating consequences or rewards and furnishing you with your own lantern to navigate.



I made up for lost time if there is such a thing, but your words touched me deeply:

"The scared teenager of a powerful operation still resides in my body."

That is true for me all these decades later, but that teenager is a dear friend now and a source of power.

Again. Time takes its own sweet time.

My story is a little backwards than yours D&D in that my father is closet gay and has been pretending not to be for my entire life. We could not relate on any level and i could not figure out why for so long not even knowing what gay was back then. I liked soccer while he like performing in plays. I feel like there was something wrong with me because i was not like him no matter how hard i tried. I knew he wanted like a mormon clone of himself as a son but i just could not be it. The fact that he pretends bothers me. Him pretending to be something that he isn't has damaged me so greatly that he doesn't even realize.

If your father is a genuine believer in Mormonism and is a genuine closeted gay, his options are very limited. He doesn't have much of a choice other than to pretend. If he really believes all the silliness of the LDS doctrine, though, he should be happy for you that you aren't a clone of him, but that's another matter.

As hard as it may be for you to deal with or accept, his choice to pretend or not to pretend in regard to his sexuality is a decision he has to make for himself, independent of other family members. If he truly is a closeted gay trying to live the good Mormon life, he is living his own personal hell. This does not in any way excuse him from any cruelty he inflicted on you as a minor, but it may help to some degree to explain why some of it may have happened.

If your father is not a convert, he was raised to believe that following what you presume are his biological desires will lead to his eternal damnation. Where his sexuality is concerned, he's between the proverbial rock and hard place. There are things a parent owes his children, but coming out as gay isn't really one of those things.

As bothersome as it must be to you to see a close relative living a lie, it's HIS lie to live if that's what he chooses to do. Is there a good reason you can't cut ties with him sooner rather than later?

I guess i am just too loyal to my father without knowing why because i do think he wants the best for me but does not get how the religion literally destroyed me and i know it will probably destroy him if i burn the bridge but i have to. I have to grow up and cut the tie. Him smothering me and being in total denial of anything that he or anyone else has done to me completely baffles me. Its almost like the religion destroyed his brain and memories. I have to burn this last bridge. I believe his anger comes from the religion teaching him to hate his true nature constantly so everyone around him including myself was walking around an angry man on eggshells almost everyday. I dreaded to be home when he come home from work. I dreaded being around my parents like i had some kind of stockholm syndrome to my abusers. My own parents the abusers and a scout leader. Trying to live a life that i thought i would never get a chance to live is hard man. I never thought i would get away from the toxic family or the religion ever. I truly gave up so many times thinking there was no hope or no way out of this to a normal or anything close to a normal life. My only option seemed to be to go out with a bang to get out for good.

Thank goodness that you now know you don't have to accept the BS, don't have to go out with a bang or with anything else until it's your time (which shouldn't be for a long time), and don't have to tolerate any of this nonsense.

I sort of get where you are coming from in terms of your loyalty to your father. I would probably have some feelings of loyalty toward my parents even if they had been jerks to me. It's just a kid-parent dynamic that's often present. You now know, however, that you have choices and are not required to participate in anything that makes you uncomfortable.

Hang in there, Warrior. You're battling difficult circumstances, and you are winning.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2019 01:06AM by scmd1.

I hope i am winning. Not riding on a fancy vehicle in a parade or anything with people cheering but i am making my own decisions the best i know how. Trying to do the adult thing full time even if i am winging it.

who came out to me as lesbian years ago and now claims I was mistaken. I won't post WHY I remember so well, but there is no way in hell she didn't tell me she is a lesbian. So now she and her oldest child don't get along and she has thrown all kinds of threats at him. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. He has his own HUGE issues. He has resigned from the church. He even had a vasectomy at age 27 or so. But the war with his mother has been horrible. His father has tried to be a buffer. There was not much love in that marriage, is not much love in that marriage. I don't think the dad knows what I know even. BUT she tried to make out that his father might be gay to deflect her issues onto her husband, so I told my son that if he ever asked, it was okay to tell him, but he had to ask, and he did ask. Then things started to make sense to him, his whole life to that point.

She is fighting for what she sacrificed her whole life for, her sexuality, etc. She sacrificed everything for a loveless marriage. All but one child was conceived in the doctor's office with the husband's sperm in a bottle.

Your father has sacrificed everything he is for this church and now you are rejecting it.

What people DO NOT UNDERSTAND is the insanity that comes from the church telling gays they can't be married to another gay, that they must marry a straight. They still say it. Gays will never be acceptable no matter what as viable in mormonism. They haven't changed much of the dialogue since I found out my "boyfriend/husband" is gay 37 years ago. Oh my hell. 37 years. I just did the math. It was 1983. My kids paid the price for our choices, for their father leaving.

But it might help you at least understand why your father is how he is. He can't, absolutely can't come to the conclusion that all his life has been a waste being a mormon if he is gay. Only you know what you know. We haven't been around him. And he isn't going to tell you.

Where is your mother? Are they divorced? Does she know if he is gay? She might very well NOT KNOW.

My parents are divorced. I think my mother knew. My sisters know. I got blamed for gay porn on the computer more than a decade ago and i never looked at gay porn in my life so thats kind of how i first figured out for sure that my father is gay. It devasted me to be blamed for it and my father not coming clean about it. Basically let me take the fall for him. I don't actually know who my father is behind his mask. I also don't know who i am either. My fathers issues somehow connect to my issues. The guys behaviors have always bothered me and affected me in a negative way. I did not know he was a narcissist either that could never be flawed or never be wrong. To expose my father would make sane almost instantly because i would no longer be the fall guy for him and the cult would be exposed. I was willing to be the 'crazy person' for the family to keep their insane beliefs alive. No amount of convincing could make them accept their illusion was false so i made a decision to always be defective and mentally ill as the one that the devil got a hold of because i didn't go along with their program (mission, temple marriage). If i am sane it means they are in fantasy land. I was willing to be insane to keep their fantasy alive. I had no idea what else i could do. If i say as the professionals have already documented that i really am a cult child abuse case, they could not accept this. To accept the truth would kill their fantasy entirely. Deep down i have always known what i am and what had happened was real and really happened. But the family absolutely can not accept the truth of what i am and what happened destroys their entire belief system and fantasy almost instantly. Adam get help they say. Alright i will get help but can you accept the truth. Me getting help will expose everything and will force the family to accept they are in a cult. They have to. I've been evaluated a thousand times 'child abuse case combined with cult brainwashing religiousity'. They have to look themselves in the mirror and admit what they are involved with. I am not the cause of their problems like i had once thought. I am not the fault or the fall guy for you cult involvement. They need to look in the mirror and say i am in a cult. I need to get on with my life. My evaluation is documented. The real and trained professionals have spoken. They can all read my evaluation and realize themselves that they are in a cult. I am tired of talking. Maybe if its from a professional psychologist they will face the truth. Lord knows nothing i could say could convince them. My only job now is to heal and walk away. They can keep getting brainwashed till death. I have better things to do like make money that i actually get to keep entirely except taxes. If the lord wants money then he can get a real job. I have to move on. Even if my brain is screwed up i'm still moving on.

Warrior, it's GREAT that you're getting the help you need, but no one in your family has to accept that they are in a cult. They may one day accept it, but then again, it may never happen. It might be better to focus on your own wellness and to allow family members who refuse to see the obvious to wallow in their own ignorance and delusions. They cannot be helped if they refuse to be helped.

As much as you would like to help, sometimes a person has to save himself and leave others to work out their own issues.

I do have to save myself even if it takes forever. My brain has to be under my full control full time. No manipulation, no guilt, no shame, no chains, no submission, no opression feeling all the time, no more fear or fear tactics. Every decision i make has to be my own even if i choose to do absolutely nothing for a day and maybe watch the new star wars(no spoilers please) then i will go watch the new star wars ON A SUNDAY haha. I'm a rebel in this mormon town haha jk. Every normal citizen in the world is looking at me like that is not rebellious at all haha. Maybe i'll sneak a beer into the theater and that will be a true rebel.

that I am the identified patient because I choose to get help. He said if the rest of my family would get help, I wouldn't need it anymore. He has told me some other things about your place in the family and I can't think of what it is. But you have a role in the family that you've played for years. If you have a good therapist, he can help you come to terms with things and, like others have said, the rest of the family doesn't have to accept their role. You can find your way out of the insanity without them changing at all.

I may feel broken right now, but I'm not nearly as broken as I used to be, and I have my support system, my therapist. When everybody else doesn't want to hear it anymore, he is there to listen and help me process what I'm going through (like he did when my son attacked me) and then my boyfriend couldn't handle me living at his house, though he pretended do. Oh my, he is SO DIFFICULT to live with. Nobody could live with him. I lived with him before. I should have known, but I was desperate at the time. My son works today. Nobody here but my dogs!!! I get some peace. My son usually doesn't bother me in terms of talking to me or being around all day, but I worry about him endlessly. My brother and nephew are just like he is. And you do remind me of them.

You are probably extremely emotionally intelligent and you feel what others are feeling. It can be overwhelming and tends to make some people hermits. Going out and living is very difficult for them. My son is that way, as are my brother and his son.

The older I get, the less people I want to be around me. Like zero. Working at Sam's last year for 5 months about did me in. What a bunch of assholes the management was. (I gave the store a bad review after shopping there one day and the old boss tried to call me and wanted me to come and talk to her. Wouldn't leave me alone. I called my old boss and asked what I should do as she was making me feel intimidated and she told me to tell her, "I DON'T WORK FOR YOU ANYMORE." She still kept bugging me and I blocked her.

It is hard to go out there and LIVE.

Yea it is hard for me to get out there and LIVE. I am insanely emotionally intelligent. I feel what others feel around me. I got overwhelmed in crowds. I connect with narcissists although they destroy me everytime. I am afraid to live on my own somewhere where i do not have room mates or their animals. Animals help me a lot surprisingly and yes even my rivalry with cats has helped me. They keep living without question so i got to keep living. Can't have those cats outlast me or outdo me, i get allergy shots so i might get the last laugh. But i have been a hermit in the past when i have lived alone and i know that it is a danger if i ever try to live on my own again like i am trying to now. I talk to different people everyday and that helps me keep my sanity. Because an empath knows that a calendar and time is man-made so we just are and just be as the world spins. It can get confusing so i do have to wear a watch that keeps track of the day and time and year and month for me. The danger and enticement of being a recluse is always high for people like us. Always have to push myself to go out to a bar or something where i know there will be a crowd. I think i have gotten better with the crowd thing. I actually like to sing karoake surprisingly. And people say honestly that i am not that bad. Even without professional training or know how to read notes i could always sing by imitation. Wish i was a natural guitar player but i definitely am not. At least i can sing though , which is one part of the band at least.

experienced is that life isn't over for you yet! I thought my life was over and totally wasted except I did have kids. You are a young man. You can marry at 50 and still have children if you so choose, just be forewarned that it is quite the JOB and full of "joy," but also disillusionment. My therapist told me (after my son had attacked me 2 weeks ago today) that the parent who does the most for their kids is usually the one who gets the worst treatment. My daughter told her prior fiance that she had the utmost respect for her dad, but not me. OH! Really!

But I know I was a good mom, not perfect, but a good mom. I sacrificed a lot for them and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. No matter what they think of me, they don't have a clue what I went through to raise them. P.S. I'm on good terms with my son now again. He has always been there for me more than my daughter, just not a good day. In fact, a horrible day.

But I wouldn't give up my children for anything. I had the guy who got away when I was 20 come back into my life when I was 47 and he is still here. A bit needy if you ask my opinion and he admits it (and he just informed me that he took next T and F off for a 5 day weekend--OH NO!) I like a lot of time alone and I'm SPENT emotionally right now. He needs his kids around so he has someone else to focus on. Maybe he'll move to Colorado to work with his son in the next few years and I can come and go from CO again or where his daughter is in Canada or even Alaska to be with my daughter.

There are still dreams to be had. There can be a girl in the future for you. Just keep working. I did find when dating that when I was less focused on finding a man than just living and doing what I enjoyed that they found me. A girl will find you. Just live your life and find some PEACE, calmness. Not what I'd say happiness. There isn't enough emphasis put on LEVEL. No highs, no lows, just level. That is all I want.

And when you are ready, I say get a dog. I think you might be surprised how much you love a dog. I was. I keep thinking I won't get a dog after I lose one, but as someone I read said, "After loving a dog, living without one is a life diminished." They make life worth living on some of the worst days.



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I have seen the value of a dog. My roommate has a dog and i can not believe how much it has helped me. Even my other room mates cat helps me although i am a little allergic to it. But damn that dog loves me no matter what i say. Might be the first creature that i can say actually likes me for real and that includes humans. Most humans don't seem to like me because i don't talk about facebook this facebook that cult this cult that politics this trump that hahaha. Who wants to talk about that garbage, not me not the warrior. Glad you are good with your son. From what you have told me your son seems a lot like me.

are a lot like my son. I see it in you. He struggles just like you do. Our dogs are a joy to him, but he also knows that someday he will have to say good-bye to them and he just can't handle any more dogs he tells me. Cats are good, too. I'm also allergic to them. My daughter is getting a cat as she needs an animal, but they will be traveling a lot back and forth from Alaska, so decided a cat would be easier.

As I've been told by my boyfriend, one of the reasons my kids treat me like they do sometimes is because I'm the only one who has never abandoned them and they know I never will.

Hey, if you are interested in working in Alaska for the summer (May through end of September), let me know. They take room and board out of your paycheck, so you have a place to live and a place to eat. I can get the info from my daughter. They are always looking for people. A lot of mormon kids go up there to get away from UTAH.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/01/2020 12:09PM by cl2.

My job is alright for now. I just drove some people to salt lake city today to get away from their relatives haha. I guess everybody has extreme family issues. It was a pretty good pay day to say the least. I do get tired of driving all the time. I hear some crazy stories from people though i will tell you what. Definitely has some excitement to what i do but i have not learned how to take days off. I always want to work every single day and i know this is not healthy but i can't help myself. If i am driving and i am alive then i want to work.

Warrior I respect you for having a great work ethic. Way to go.

I've worked every day for years and years. Security is a big one. Financial security. I go bonkers when I don't have work. This season has been slow for some reason with this job of medical transcription and I need to just chill, but I sit here and hope they have work today. Insane.

Work is also an escape. It also gives you a sense of self worth. I think the type of job you have is good for you. I'm glad you have it!!! The best job in Alaska for someone like you would be driving their tour buses and that is what I was going to suggest. So, you see!

You are doing so much better. Give yourself credit for all you've accomplished. How far you've come.

Well i have been pushed. The fact of never having to ever live under the same roof ever again as certain relatives is a HUGE motivator to work everyday when there is work. Living with a controlling narcissist is worse than death. And also being forced to do rituals that you feel are stupid is worse than death as well. So basically my upbringing in totallity was worse than death. I don't even care if i don't know who i am or what my favorite color is i am not living under the same roof as a controlling narcissist that does not know that he is the messed up one. I'll be self-sufficient with all my defects i do not care.

Hang in there. It took me until I was 49 to write my father the final letter. He died 12 years later, and I have no regrets.

You will know when it's time. Only you can decide.

My father probably thinks i am coming back to the religion but i am not. I doubted it all pretty much from the beginning. How i could see through it all quickly and they never could i have no idea and i may never know. All i know is that the real me has wanted to get away from it all for nearly my entire life. I was forced to be brainwashed or mind controlled as a child completely against my will with a controlling father that literally thought doing tis to me would be the best thing for me. My brain still is not healed from the whole experience but it may never be. I may never be my real authentic self ever again. I don't really know. Feel like i am getting closer to my real self as the days go. The real goal is to just be able to use my brain again without some authority figure looming over me to try to stop me from thinking for myself like some kind of thought police force.

Someone here recently said, and I will repeat, that family are the people you hold dearest to you. Relatives are people that simply share DNA with you.

Throughout history many kings and pharaohs killed siblings and other family members in order to gain power as the supreme leader of the nation. Your "William" must be at the top (probably within your whole family) and is willing to kill you emotionally to hold that place. You are the only one who can keep that from happening to you. The rest of your relatives will have to take care of themselves in this regard.

Your situation is not unique. It has been happening for thousands of years so do not berate yourself.

William definitely wants to make sure i stay underneath him but it is much harder for him to do when i am no longer under the same roof as him. It totally changes the control dynamic when i am not in his sight nor under his charge. He has always seen me like a piece of his property and i even struggle to not see myself as someone elses object. He is the strongest energy vampire you could ever be around and he is never wrong and has never done anything wrong. I have noticed i get stronger the longer i am away from him. I guess my mind is healing naturally from being away from a narcissist. I think when most people manage to get away from a narcissist their mind heals.