Re: hate object

August 12, 2010

Your post hits home with me and I am sure many others in this group... I have

always been the " scapegoat " of my Nada's issues. Everything has always been my

fault... Even as a young child it was always about what I did wrong... Even

though I was a child, I was blamed for adult issues. The thing you have to

remember (my therapist taught me) is that children are not responsible for the

issues we were blamed for. A child should never take the responsibility for the

issues that BP's often blame them for... Children are innocent and because of

the way our parents were, many of us have grown up with guilt, low self-esteem,

low confidence...etc... I know I will always be the " object of her hate. " You

just have to remember what is good for you and put those hurtful actions and

statements outside of your thoughts of yourself... You are better than what your

BP has ever given you credit for. I learned that I have to just judge myself by

MY standards... I ask myself if I am being true to who I want to be and if the

answer is " yes " then I am doing just fine. I have had to learn that no matter

how hard I try to be the person my Nada wants I will never be it... (It is

impossible) When in doubt my therapist suggests asking yourself certain

questions like, " Has your BP's judgements been accurate in the past? " " Is your

BP a good, reliable source of accurate information? " Of course, these questions

remind us how crazy our BP's can act and they ground us in our reality... You

didnt do anything to deserve that hate... It is your BP's issues!

>

> Does anyone feel like a 'hate object' for their PD parent? I was thinking

about this today after getting hit with another one of my father's tirades of

sick, they are averaging every few days now, and for some reason I started

thinking about the phrase 'object of my affection' which is whom you project

love on to, and I was thinking about how it's the opposite with him and I am who

he projects hate onto and it is probably 'self-hate' since it is infinite. This

has been going on for 41 years. So I feel that if it was something I did it

would be over by now. And I am unwilling to beleive my mere existence is enough

of a reason to hate someone. Which leads me to the conclusion the hate is coming

from inside him, and it has to be 'cleared' at certain intervals, kind of like a

pulsar emits radiation at intervals.

>

> I remind him of something, probably the vulnerable child he was, that was

abused. Not that that excuses anything or makes it easier. I'm so tired of it.

>

August 12, 2010

Yes. Very insightful, I totally buy your concept of the painted-black child as

the " hate object " that the bpd parent projects his or her own self-loathing

onto.

Similarly to you, I believe that my nada never has been capable of relating to

me (or my Sister, it would seem) as a separate, unique human being. I have

always been either her appendage (like an extra, attached limb) or a reflective

object to her: when she's happy with herself then she sees me as Golden, and

when she is unhappy with herself then I am painted black, reviled and attacked.

Her feelings about me over the decades have had very little to do with *me*: my

actions, my thoughts, my words.

When she's been particularly unhappy and miserable inside herself, the analogy

that seemed most appropriate to me is that she had a massive buildup of toxic

crap inside her that she needed to excrete, and I was her toilet. She'd

explosively crap her toxic waste onto me, then she'd feel... relieved. Ahhh.

And I'd feel lower than crap; as a child I had no choice but to believe that I

deserved this.

In a way, my nada was self-harming by screaming at me, hitting me, slapping me

around and calling me vile names, since in her mind I *am* her, just a

reflection of her.

Its pretty hard to grow up normally, with normal emotional development when

you're perceived as an object by your parents, particularly by the parent you

spend the most time with, who is *supposed* to be mirroring you, the child, to

give you a sense of who you are in this world.

I think its probably only due to some innate resilience or normal brain wiring

on my part (due to dad's more healthy brain genes?) that I didn't wind up

exactly like nada, although it is true that at around 8 or so I did just " give

up " trying and I became totally merged and enmeshed with nada in a kind of

" Stockholm Syndrome " way. It was a mostly unconscious survival mechanism, and

truly it didn't help that much to become nada's mini-me; it made me hate myself.

I think that individuals like my nada who cannot relate to her child as a

separate human being have no business raising children, frankly.

And like you, I'm tired of trying to have a relationship with my nada. And I

just don't care anymore.

-Annie