Re: New Member « Result #2 on Dec 26, 2009, 9:20pm »
Yes, anger is frequently a part of the mix. I spent a good number of years after the events being angry - Not consciously angry at the things that had happened because I kept telling myself that it was no big deal, but just subtly angry at everything in the world in a very generalized sort of way.
Guilt, too. After all, these were the people who raised me, how dare I be ungrateful for that? What was wrong with ME?
“The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth. It hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills... Other things may change us, but we start and end with family” - Anthony Brandt
I am a new member to this group. My name is Pete. I am 47.
I only discovered the concept of covert incest a few weeks ago. It is like a light bulb has finally gone on. I have been searching to try and find out what is wrong with me for the last 25 - 30 years. Before that I was just depressed and looking for help - any help.
I went back into Alcohol, and Drug recovery again recently. I also stopped smoking cigarettes and my mind kind of exploded with rage at my mother. I recognized this from the last time I went into recovery almost nine years ago.
AA's big book teaches that when ever we were angry we were somehow at fault. So I didn't respond with any anger towards my mother. But I did share the fact that I felt homicidal towards her on another forum. One thing led to another and I found my way here - I thank God!
For the first time in my life at least as long as I can remember I could look at myself in the mirror and say, "You are OK Peter"
I saw this guy who even I could say I liked the look of, who looks a bit old before his time, and he wasn't exactly ecstatic with happiness, but he just looked OK to me.
When I read the opening paragraph on this web site about why it happens, it felt as though it was the closest any one could have written in plain English describing my story and putting words to the feelings I have felt for so long.
I am so grateful.
But there is a sting in this tail too. I managed to put 6000 miles between myself and my mother - a good start. I have been out of the country for almost 9 years and have only visited her three times I think in that time. But she is still able to get to me.
Because of the intractable guilt I feel for not loving her and meeting her infinite needs I felt I needed to finally tell her plainly why I was not going to talk to her ever again. So I cut and pasted that paragraph, adding a few of my own pertinent sentences, and emailed it to her. The final straw for me which made me punch that send button was my remembering how my sister had actually tried to literally seduce me when she and my mother once visited me in Israel. I realized then that this is real. I am not making this up. This incest really did go on in my family. So I forwarded a copy of the email to my sister too.
But I still haven't fully extracated myself from their bondage. They have my address and email and phone number, so I am going to work on changing as many of these as I can over the next few weeks.
Re: Not sure if I belong to CI? « Result #4 on Dec 24, 2009, 5:49pm »
It's always hard to define what "is" or "is not" CI; It's like justice Potter Stweart once said of pornography - I can't define it but I know it when I see it. And I see it here. It's sometimes doubly difficult to define it because of the "covert" nature of it - the overall situation can be abusive without any one instance rising to the legal definition of abuse in any way you can meaningfully point a finger at.
I can also sympathize because I went through a lot of this same self-doubt myself, with a setpmother who acted similar to your mom in many ways.
“The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth. It hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills... Other things may change us, but we start and end with family” - Anthony Brandt
Not sure if I belong to CI? « Result #5 on Dec 23, 2009, 1:49pm »
Hi,
Although I had a bad childhood, I'm not sure if I'd qualify as a person of CI.
My mom used to always tell me from a young age how I was going to be rich and be able to buy her a house and give her money so she wouldn't have to work. I pretty much raised myself from ages 6+ and raised my little brother. I remember her asking for financial advice in my teens; what did I know about money? I was convinced for about 20+ years that I had a duty to become rich to support her. It didn't matter what I wanted to be in life.
There was also some sexual things although she never directly did anything to me. When I was young, and we lived in a small apartment, she'd have sex with her boyfriend right in front of me. It stopped with that boyfriend though. She also used to walk around the house naked until I was about 14.
Needlesss to say, I had some confusing sexual feelings about her and still do. Ironically she considers herself an advocate against direct incest.
More mother/daughter CI. :( « Result #6 on Dec 3, 2009, 9:16pm »
I've been dealing with issues with my mum for a long time but it's not until now I've found a name for the situation, or so I believe. I'm 22 and it took me until two years ago to realise there was even something really wrong with how my mum treats me and that it was affecting me so badly, ruining my day to day life.
My mum and dad were never really together for very long and mum had another kid by a different father who also wasn't around very long. Basically, aside from a few years when she was married to a lovely guy, it was just her and us two kids. She always said I was her favourite from a young age which always made me uncomfortable even back then. When my stepdad left, things got pretty bad but it's taken me until pretty much now to link those two things together.
She's a drug user. Weed, mostly, but speed for a while too. I first smoked weed with her when I was 16 but she offered it to me a long time before then and got me drunk many times since I was 12. She thought it was hilarious.
Mum has a lot of control over my life. Not as much as she did, but a lot. When I was younger she used to use my dad (who is a sweetheart and an absolutely amazing man) as a weapon, saying he'd tell me off if I did something wrong. He did, obviously, but not how she meant. He never shouted or went over the top with tantrums like she used to. He never threw things around the room or sat and cried until I apologised. He just told me to be nice and left it at that. Like a parent should, I guess. Anyway, I know she did this because she didn't want him to have control over me. When I was 16 I moved out of mum's to live with him. It didn't do anything for the control she had over me, but I couldn't live with her any more = that was when her drug problem was at its worst. Dad and I get on but it's only now, years later, that I'm starting to understand him and see him for who he is and not who mum made him out to be. I'm still struggling not to feel bitter that he didn't 'rescue' me from her, but as I tell him what life was like with her, he always reacts with shock so I guess she was just good at hiding it. And I sure as hell wasn't going to tell anyone, I thought it was normal at the time.
While I was at university, me and mum had a huge argument. She used to get pissed off if I didn't phone her every day. I got fed up of it because I wanted my own life rather than being an extension of hers, and told her to stop texting and that I'd phone when I wanted to, that she didn't need to hear every little thing I did. Yeah. That got way out of control. She would text me every day, repeatedly, telling me that she was sorry and that she would give me space. I don't even think she realises how ridiculous that is, to pester me all day about giving me space. Eventually I burst into tears on campus with my friends and it all came to a head. For a while I managed to stop her overbearing need to talk to me but it's kind of come back now and I'm stressed about it.
We do have issues with what we talk about, I think. She's always been very open about sex which is sometimes a good thing but on the other hand, I find myself telling her about my own sex life when she prompts me. That's not appropriate. She doesn't have one due to a traumatic past, so she likes hearing about mine I guess? I need to stop sharing that stuff with her. She expects me to share EVERYTHING with her. All the time. And I find myself doing it. Worst of all, I find myself compulsively sharing my own secrets with people I hardly know because I'm so used to spilling the beans. I hate it. It's embarrassing.
Sometimes she'll make a comment about my body or something, complimenting in a totally innocent way, but then she instantly follows it up with "not that I fancy you or anything" which creeps me out SO MUCH. And she's done it my whole life, since I was a kid. That's not something you say to a kid even if she's joking (which she's not, she's seriously concerned that I'd think that, wtf).
She relies on me a lot with problems. She tells me about her friends and how they've hurt her etc. She asks me for money a lot which I can't give her right now. When I was 18 and got some money from a mini trust fund, she borrowed £1000 of it and only just paid it back and didn't pay it back in full. She cries at me on the phone if I haven't called her for a while, or because she can't afford me a christmas present (which she could if she didn't choose drugs over me every damn time), or because someone wouldn't kiss her arse or something like she expects everyone to do. It's so difficult living my life. My dad gives me pitying looks when she rings me now. I get so wound up but I don't know what to do about it anymore.
Basically, my whole life I've been under my mums' control no matter how hard I try to break it and believe me, I've tried hard. Sometimes I think it would be best to break away from her completely but I don't know if I could do that because I do love her, I guess. Though she even makes me doubt that sometimes.
I've been involved with sexual incest too, with my older cousin. That was consensual but extremely messed up and I realise now that at that age, and with how much older she is than me, that it was wrong. I didn't at the time. I've done a lot of things I didn't realise was wrong at the time because of my mum's skewed morality. I even told her about that. Argh.
Re: Christian covert « Result #7 on Dec 3, 2009, 6:49pm »
This misuse of Christianity was also a major factor, at least indirectly, in my parent's covert behaviour. There were two particular aspects that were very troubling for me.
One was, there were times when I felt the ONLY reason they were christians was because there were enough "thou shall not's" in the bible that it gave them the ammunition that they needed to hate whomever they felt like hating. It is almost unbelievable how mean-spirited and hateful and venomous my stepmom could be towards anyone she disagreed even slightly with. All couched in biblical platitudes, of course.
The other was, it never seemed to actually apply to THEM; Their "christianity" somehow made them immune to criticism. Any mistakes they'd ever made - assuming you could even get them to admit to a mistake in the first place - were of no importance because they were "saved" and "forgiven" by their purported faith.
I don't blame christianity as a whole though, only them. We'd start attending a church and go there for several months until they had an inevitable disagreement with the church and then move on to another church. At the time, they always blamed the church. In retrospect, it was probably more a matter of the churches realizing that my folks weren't 'their' type of people and shunning them or pressuring them to leave.
“The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth. It hardly seems to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills... Other things may change us, but we start and end with family” - Anthony Brandt
Re: Dealing with a Visit from MOM « Result #8 on Nov 29, 2009, 6:48pm »
Hi, Perplexed. Welcome. I am glad to have you here. I'm a male survivor too and am really trying to put the issues I've dealt with my entire life behind me.
Dealing with a Visit from MOM « Result #9 on Nov 27, 2009, 7:22pm »
Hello-
I am a recovering survivor of emotional incest and am very grateful to have found this forum. My wife and I recently separated after 4 years of marriage (8 years total relationship), largely due to my difficulties with intimacy and sex resulting from my emotionally incestuous relationship with my mother. Our breakup has forced me to look at this issue and its effect on my life. And so I find myself alone for the first Thanksgiving in 8 years. I decided to forego the family festivities this year (still dealing, not ready), but I had invited my mother and stepfather to stay with me, so they came over after dinner last night and stayed until this morning. I am still processing the myriad ways my mother still invades my personal space. Unsurprisingly, it feels like she is using the breakup of my marriage as an opportunity to reestablish our incestuous bond. Here are some examples:
-Last night, after my stepfather had gone to bed, she started asking me questions about my wife/marriage/breakup. I characteristically shared more than I wanted to, knowing that was what she needed (demanded?). She spoke disparagingly about my soon-to-be-ex and said she always knew that something was "off" with her.
-This morning, after my stepfather had gone out to get something for breakfast, my mother was lying in the bed in our den/guest room with the door open calling loudly for our two cats to come play with her: "ricky? mango? anyone?" It seems clear that she was using them as a ruse to call for me, "anyone."
-Later this morning, she said that she and my stepfather were planning on doing some shopping on black friday (today), including looking for a new mattress. Without giving it a second thought, I began extolling the virtues of my tempurpedic mattress, whereupon my mother seizes the opportunity to rush to my bed to "try it out," later pressuring my stepfather to do the same.
-Just before leaving, she tells me she is leaving her toothbrush in the guest room (a not-so-subtle statement that she'll be back). Is she marking her territory or what?
-Later on in the day, once she has gotten home, she calls me up to tell me what a nice time she had, and also that she misses the long talks we used to have. I have to say I am very proud of myself, having only said "I know" and not "me too."
Visits like these leave me feeling confused, angry, sad and guilty. I want to have a positive relationship with my mother. But I don't think she knows the first thing about boundaries, and I don't know how to make her understand. I don't feel like discussing things with her will do any good, I don't think she has the capacity to see how her behavior is just wrong. She will just get hurt and I'll end up getting sucked into a big emotional scene, which is exactly what I don't need.
I think the first thing I need to do is let my ex take the sofabed to her new apt!
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