Pluto
Meowing to go out
- Dec 27, 2020
- 4,031
Even though I'm striving towards a path of ego death where nothing in the world matters, I have found that parental issues have come up along the way. Authenticity is extremely important so all of this stuff must be faced. There's a saying in some books, "What you resist persists."
In short, I now realise that a lot of what I've tried to do with my life was motivated by anger and trying to disprove my father's portrayal of me as a pitiful caricature of a man. Throughout childhood he artfully avoided connecting with me and portrayed me as a retarded loser. He liked to set me up to fail by denying me support with my childhood development, then when I failed to achieve normal milestones he would enjoy watching me fall, pretending to have done his best and thus ensuring I am blamed and humiliated. The cruel mind games slowly broke me, especially as the wider family had been encouraged to join in the scapegoating, and I'd been set up to be bullied heavily at school with no protection. When I was a young adult in a state of total breakdown, he famously described me to outsiders as "completely incapable".
He wore various masks in public, sometimes feigning confusion/concern, often presenting himself as a humble, friendly little old man... but when the masks came off behind closed doors, I saw an absolute demon. I realised that even if I died a gruesome death, he would portray himself as grieving and lap up all the attention, but still have that smug smile that narcissists do so well. Whether or not I survive, he is a fully-fledged torturer and a murderer as far as I am concerned. Alas, all his abuse was successfully covered up and I was abandoned by the whole family for trying to speak out against him.
So in the ensuing years, I tried to achieve relationships, tried to achieve a modicum of material success through pushing myself far beyond what is humane, and tried to earn a normal life. Results have been decidedly lame. Having ultimately realised that the various curses of autism and PTSD and poverty can't simply be fought through intense effort, the process now seems to be one of letting go, forgiving my own failures, ending the war zone of my inner state and accepting my situation gracefully. After countless years of little or no contact, what matters is discarding the internal residue of skeletons of yesteryear.
PS, I didn't intend this to be a vent. But if anyone has any thoughts or experiences on this topic, this is relevant to many others here.
In short, I now realise that a lot of what I've tried to do with my life was motivated by anger and trying to disprove my father's portrayal of me as a pitiful caricature of a man. Throughout childhood he artfully avoided connecting with me and portrayed me as a retarded loser. He liked to set me up to fail by denying me support with my childhood development, then when I failed to achieve normal milestones he would enjoy watching me fall, pretending to have done his best and thus ensuring I am blamed and humiliated. The cruel mind games slowly broke me, especially as the wider family had been encouraged to join in the scapegoating, and I'd been set up to be bullied heavily at school with no protection. When I was a young adult in a state of total breakdown, he famously described me to outsiders as "completely incapable".
He wore various masks in public, sometimes feigning confusion/concern, often presenting himself as a humble, friendly little old man... but when the masks came off behind closed doors, I saw an absolute demon. I realised that even if I died a gruesome death, he would portray himself as grieving and lap up all the attention, but still have that smug smile that narcissists do so well. Whether or not I survive, he is a fully-fledged torturer and a murderer as far as I am concerned. Alas, all his abuse was successfully covered up and I was abandoned by the whole family for trying to speak out against him.
So in the ensuing years, I tried to achieve relationships, tried to achieve a modicum of material success through pushing myself far beyond what is humane, and tried to earn a normal life. Results have been decidedly lame. Having ultimately realised that the various curses of autism and PTSD and poverty can't simply be fought through intense effort, the process now seems to be one of letting go, forgiving my own failures, ending the war zone of my inner state and accepting my situation gracefully. After countless years of little or no contact, what matters is discarding the internal residue of skeletons of yesteryear.
PS, I didn't intend this to be a vent. But if anyone has any thoughts or experiences on this topic, this is relevant to many others here.
