How did your family teach you wrong?

[trenton]

I come from a deeply dysfunctional family, and I have internalized a lot of messages that were taught to me. Part of this is due to some of my family members being narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, or all three simultaneously. I ended up being taught a lot of lies in the process and they proved to be damaging. These were not just lies they explicitly told me, but also lies I internalized based on the environment that was created.

1. Sexual boundaries are obvious: As a child I was given a lot of mixed messages around sexual boundaries. Sometimes the girls would get undressed in the living room which annoyed. Sometimes my Grandpa would look at porn. Meanwhile I was exposed to environments at school where boys were looking up girl's skirts and crossing various sexual boundaries. The resulting environment created deep confusion in me around what sexual boundaries are acceptable because I wasn't given any consistent framework.

2. I am sexual predator: As a result of these confused boundaries I started having dreams that children should not have. This included dreams of my uncle molesting me and my sister. When I was six I repeated the behavior I was exposed to with my four year old sister. Once my mother discovered this, she held me to the standards of an adult. This became a severe form of psychological abuse with sexual themes that created many of the same psychological problems of religious trauma and CSA. I became deeply conflicted with any sexual feelings which I came to view as predatory. The chaotic internal state made me feel like I could not trust my impulses and I might become a predator. This event led to an entire belief system that was based on lies.

3. I can't be trusted with kids: When I was three my father fled the State to avoid paying child support. Without any other reference point, I believed that this was how the world works. Therefore, I became avoidant of romantic relationships and raising kids. I would imagine scenarios like me manipulating a woman and then abandoning her like Dad did to Mom. I'm not actually like this, but due to my fear of abandoning my kids I decided to avoid having kids altogether. I would then generate rational sounding reasons as to why I would want to avoid romantic relationships.

4. Being the bigger person: Due to the deep shame I carried, I became easy to manipulate through weaponized morality. Being the bigger person would translate into tolerating abuse while taking on undue blame. I went through a dramatic change once I became wise to the narcissistic tactics and now the family is confused by my new behaviors. They can project all day telling me to let go of the past or be forgiving, but ultimately I am protecting myself from bad faith actors who want to capitalize on my moral instincts. It is obvious that they care more about power and control than they do genuine goodness, and the proof is how much they start bashing in the aftermath of an argument when they win.

5. My grandpa was evil: As a child my grandpa and I loved each other deeply. We had a close bond because he filled the void my father left behind through abandonment. I was distraught when my grandpa died, and was clear that it was worse than most people at the funeral when I collapsed. My father recognized this and he used it as a tool to manipulate me. He would make up various stories about my grandpa while positioning himself as someone who could protect me from the abusive situation at home. He showed textbook grooming behaviors by isolating me from others in the family while mixing love bombing with threats of abandonment. The stories he made up about grandpa included things he said on his death bed that didn't happen. He created a narrative of redemption from criminal behavior throughout the history of the family and framed me as the one to break the cycle. I was vulnerable to this kind of manipulation because of the deep shame I held and the need to prove my worth through purpose. My father seemed to be studying me as he organized his manipulative behavior around what my triggers were. He would then undermine my trust in my grandpa by telling stories about how he was a gangster that gave him guns and enabled his criminal behavior. In order for this to be true, my grandpa would have had to have gotten out of jail, reformed, become a police informant, and then encourage his son to coerce people with his guns while actively working to take down those gangs as a police informant. The stories he made up about his father served his manipulation. My grandpa was the only one in the family who had offered me genuine love and my father hijacked this love for his own purposes.

6. Family values: Typically healthy advice about relationships simply do not apply to families like mine. Open communication will only give them more tools to manipulate you. There is this pseudo moral appeal about love and family values, but they are frequently applied in ways to make me tolerate abuse. If you are dealing with narcissists, then they could easily hijack any typically healthy value system like these and weaponize it against you. Healthy relationships are not possible with people just because you were born to them. You need to find people at a high enough level of development in order for any healthy relationship to be possible. I simply am not compatible with my family.

7. I deserved harsh treatment: I remember when my Mom hit me and yelled that she had been going too easy on me for being the only boy. This message seemed to stick with me as I isolated myself in my room. I inwardly became increasingly harsh on myself. Seeing as my mother never had any consistent moral standards, this was likely a problem with her and her narcissistic behaviors.

8. My sisters deserved empathy and understanding: My father had no interest in his daughters and only wanted to see me on my own to make his manipulation easier. My sisters were jealous of this sexism. My mother and grandmother wanted me to be understanding of them, which led to me feeling guilty for my father's favoritism while feeling sorry for them. However, my sisters still learned various narcissistic behaviors from my mother. Once they learned about everything my father had done to me, they started weaponizing this trauma against me and failed to extend the same love and empathy. It is because of this behavior that I refuse to see my older sister. Under normal circumstances it is good to love and have empathy for others who suffer, however if they are narcissists then they will use the vulnerability this creates against you. This led to a strong sense of betrayal and my sister continue to act like this to this day while keeping it hidden from other family members so they can all gaslight me. This is common in covert narcissism which is often the result of adverse childhood experiences and learned behaviors from dysfunctional parents.

9. I was a hero: As a child I was afraid of my stepfather and I was afraid for my younger siblings as my mother was blowing money on drugs. Seeing as the parents had failed I developed parentification in which I felt it was my responsibility to protect my younger siblings from them. My father saw this in me and knew that my heroism could ultimately be used for his own purposes. He took the information I gave him about Mom and then started using it against her in court to get out of paying child support. All of this was done under a fabricated purpose of redemption by freeing the family from the criminal cycle which my father was part of. Although I was ultimately successful in saving my mother's life, protecting my siblings, and getting my stepfather evicted, I still felt hollow inside. Ultimately, I never was the one who needed redemption. I was operating under a false purpose that was never mine because I was struggling with things like depression and I was trying to justify my existence through meaningful action. Although my actions were genuinely heroic, it came from a purpose that was never mine as it was my family who needed to redeem themselves and not me.

10. Learned racism: Some of my family members were racist and I went on to repeat their racist beliefs in school. It helped that later I did my own research into history in order to debunk various myths about black people for example. I also came to believe racist beliefs about Muslims which I no longer follow. Some of the racist myths included things like selective breeding and why segregation persists. I probably do have some unconscious bias against black people that is very difficult to overcome even though I logically understand these racist beliefs are not true. There are some sociologists who argue that deep down most people are unconsciously racist on some level and it is hard to eliminate entirely. I may also have some unconscious sexism as well. Although I never accepted the sexist narratives my father taught me because they contradicted what I learned in school, I could still be sexist in some other way. I think it has to do with things like race and gender stereotypes.

There are probably many more things my family taught me that was not true. I'm curious to see what others come up with. Maybe you will be able to identify common parenting mistakes in the process.

[trenton]

My family continues to teach me wrong, but now I simply reject their teachings. They are now telling me that I can't let things go again. I don't fall for these antics because the narcissistic traits and behaviors have never gone away. On top of that they clearly don't understand autism because people with autism are more sensitive to emotional abuse and are more likely to develop symptoms of PTSD which they dismiss as character flaws. To me this is not about holding grudges. I am going to protect myself from people who cause me PTSD and drive me to suicidal behavior. Furthermore, they are trying to discredit my understanding of psychology claiming that my assertion of being self-taught is somehow arrogant. They claim they understand abuse better than me because they lived it and had it worse than me. I refuse to engage with people who project their motives onto me. I am not the person they say I am and I will not let them guilt trip me and I will not fall for their lies.