In the words of my sister, “Growing up I knew something was wrong, I didn’t know what, but I got out of there as soon as I could.” She was smart and went away to college. Me, not so much.

Going through Mother’s pathological hoarding (details in another blog), I found family photos from our growing up years, clearly demonstrate something was wrong. Tense expressions and body language, nobody smiling, except Mother with, what I now realize is a fake mask, donned to hide to others what was really going on.

I was in therapy, extraditing myself from an abusive relationship before I began understanding what I had lived through. Not realizing I would end up in a duplicate situation, I took no time to be on my own before jumping into a relationship which just manifested differently. Mental, verbal and emotional abuse is not as visible, much harder to prove, but is actually more devastating. To this day, some family members and friends do not believe my shared experiences.

I need to point out that children who grow up in an abusive environment, are desensitized to abusiveness, tolerate abuse, thinking it is normal, making them targets to adults who will take advantage and mistreat. Without therapy and understanding, this saga continues. Much of family therapy is tracing generational patterns, gaining insights to promote change.

With my therapist’s assistance, I found understanding, acknowledgement, and acceptance regarding recollections of Mother’s abnormal, abusive, pathological behavior. And, I finally began to make sense of my childhood and teenage years (more about Borderline Personality Disorder in future blog).

As Mother’s erratic verbal abuse and behavior continued, I found support and strategies to process my past, and most importantly, strategies to cope with unpredictable behavior towards me as well as towards family, medical personnel, and others.