The Engulfed Child Completed

Do you ever press the publish key by mistake while your editing?  Yep, happened to me, sorry.

The problem of my last post is still going on, and I am doing what I have to do, and there is some progress.  I can talk about that in another post.  Meanwhile, I wanted to talk about something else.

The issue with the engulfed child.  Adult child of an engulfing narcissist.  I am hoping to help bring some value here.

Some engulfed children, now adults, have secret blogs.  They are still in contact with their abusers. And yet they are awake and aware.  How can this be?  Well, I actually made some posts about the importance of no contact, even more especially for the engulfed child, who I think needs it so much, but they can't have it.  So I went on and on about it. It is important, but very scary.  But it is hard to even contemplate no contact for anyone with an engulfing mother.

I hope I don't cause grief here, I may overlap at times, it might sound contradictory, I might say something wrong, but my only intention here is to shed light on the child of the engulfer.  From my own experience.

It was a painful time.  I can now emphasize with these ACONS.  Why they don't even want to try no contact.  An engulfer is tremendously scary.  Scary even to stand up to.  We are all in such tremendous fear, that it even stops us from no contact.  Actually, it was my husband that initiated no contact from my mother for me.  She hates him, so she went no contact from me.  If it weren't for him, I am sure I would never have been able to cut the ties on my own.

An engulfer owns you.  You are property.  Call it what you will, a dollchild, a trophy doll, all those seem so wonderful.  But dolls get there eyeballs pulled out, they are hurt bad by bad children.  And they have no say. There is pain to live with, pain you have to actually show your appreciation for. You exist because of them, you have no existence otherwise.  

All these things are underlying the wonderful treatment the MN gives you.  You'll never guess.  I got drunk the day I found out.  I didn't know.  I thought my mother was wonderful, and her horrible treatment of me was my fault and I had to smarten up somehow.  

Imagine, you are spoiled, you are bad, you are told that you get away with everything.  I never got away with anything.  It is very confusing.  But I thought this person was wonderful, afterall she shared her entire existence with me.  She sacrificed.  And all I could do was do wrong.  

I did everything wrong.  Even though mother took care of me, I remember a whole summer that my hair was neither washed or brushed.  This was my fault.  But I wasn't given this life skill.  I wasn't even allowed to dress myself until I was almost a teen.  While I was in school.  During the summer holidays, all my clothes can turn into rags and I was basically unwashed and unkempt.  How come I couldn't figure this out on my own?  Others have I'm sure.  Lots of children learned on their own.

Maybe I could have, but get this, I WAS TRAINED TO LOOK SLOPPY, BECAUSE IT SHOWED HOW MUCH I NEEDED MOTHER.  Otherwise, I don't think she could have gotten away with her engulfing.  I don't even know how she trained me to look stupid.  Lots of info here in my blog about the brainwashing.  It was something like that.  Yeah, I even convinced myself I needed mother.  And any attempts at trying on my own would have been met with insults and humiliation.

I never brushed my teeth, because mother never brushed her teeth.  I was only a mirror.  Anything I did to improve myself, brought on a horrible rage and I would always relent.  I had to, otherwise I could not have survived.  And it wasn't my fault.  I was born into this. 

After awhile, I didn't know the difference anymore.  It was caused by me, I was stupid, that is all. And it wasn't like anything was out in the open either.  No one could see this.  My other siblings had more freedom than me, and it was strange how my sister had nice hair and clothes.  I never resented her for it, till mother caused me to feel like I needed to be like my sister.  Because my sister was more acceptable than I was.  She told me that.  Then I often fought with my sister.  She was much older, so I usually lost. One time mother bought my sister and I a lovely dresser.  I was allowed to use half the drawers and my sister would get the rest of the drawers and the whole top of the dresser for her things like jewellery, makeup etc.  I had some jewellery, makeup too, but not much.  I was only 10, my sister was 17.  Its no job for the engulfed child to have these things. She never wanted me to have them, but I did have some somehow.

Mother told me that I would have to fight with my sister for the top of the dresser.  We did fight while mother sat down with her cigarette and coffee.  She had to prepare her coffee and cigarette before we were allowed to fight.  She prepared them, and then sat in the chair and motioned for the fight to begin.  Shortly after that I never had much in the way of jewellery and makeup.  I was only in grade school, but I acquired some, I never used much.  But, somehow, shortly after that I don't remember having any at all.

I couldn't have anything mother didn't like me to have.  Even a relative gave me a beautiful mushroom lamp one time, and it got destroyed.  I was to live simply, just like mother did.  Except for the clothes on my back, and I tried to remember why I even had those.  My memory is not cluing in to why I had these nice expensive clothes (which made mother look very self sacrificing) but at times I was a rag doll.  My memory is very fleeting on this.

Announcing a marriage or pregancy was an insult to her.  She told me that she should have had me sterilized as a kid.  She said that I was pushing her away.  She went 20 years no contact with me because she was pissed off.  Those brats I had she saw only a couple of times over that long stretch of time.  She would look at them like they were dirt.  There was no baby cooing, or takeover of my children, she walked away from us, she didn't want them.  She didn't know what to do, she even told me that she felt as though I was pushing her away.  She said that she should come first for all she sacrificed.  But, lol, there were no laws in place for her to use to get me back and away from everone else.   She just ignored me then.  One time I called her up for a recipe for chile.  She told me that I would have to get a turtle and a duck to make chile.  

Self-Esteem?  No.  I had to build mother's up.  But I had to watch what I said.  It was hard.  I had to build her up in the way she liked, and it was hard.  One time when I was very little, a relative came over and I told her that she was fat.  I got in huge trouble.  I was repeating what my mother had said before about this relative, and I was told to repeat what mother says, so what gives?  Confusion again. Better grow up fast and figure that one out.  Otherwise, stay young and my baby.

My other siblings would insult me.  Ah, who cares?  Except they had ways of hurting me that attacked any self-esteem I might have been able to get from them.  They were on a different level with me, and if I had a chance to have a perpendicular chance for self-esteem, that blew that away too.  I wish now, that we were the siblings that built eachother up, how much better we would be? But it never happened.

Getting out of that was very hard.  I was raised in it.  I knew nothing else.  But I did have a powerful force in my life, that helped me out tremendously.  This is the part where I can't leave God out.  Even before I knew who he was, he was helping me.  I remember feeling very loved.  I mean real love, where the presence was acknowledging me as a person.  As myself and not a mirror.  From an early age!  That acknowledgment that God gave me is the person that I am today.  

We were Catholics so I got some idea of who God was.  His presence was in my life.  During the times I was crying, or mad, he was there.  I felt it.  

There was drinking, parties, drugs.  All my siblings fell into it, but I didn't.  I somehow felt that I would lose this loving presence in my life.  It was so huge and real and I was scared to lose it.  It wasn't physical, but I knew it was there.  I remember God raising me through this mess. Pouring out just pure love.  Even though I was gaslighted and confused, I did have this solidarity.

I didn't have any salvation moment, when I suddenly got saved.  I just was always like this.  God had been with me, for as long as I existed.

I always wonder how God could let this thing happen to me.  Why didn't he stop it?  Why did he guide me through it instead?  I don't know.  I can't know everything.  There is a whole universe of stuff we don't know.  I still don't know if He had a reason to leave me like that.  I just don't know.

Even my faith, during the early months of my awakening, started to dwindle.  I started to hate this faith thing, like it was a form of gaslighting again, and I wanted no part of it.  "The just shall live by faith".  Is sort of a like it or leave it statement.

But God didn't even leave me alone even while I was losing my trust in him.  Oh no, not even abandoning me when I was abandoning Him.  It was a remarkable experience.  He wouldn't go away.

I started to want proof, and it was very unusual how this came about.  I went for a walk in the yard and I was praying to God (I was always praying even though I was mad at him).  All of a sudden I started to look at the sky and the sun and look at the marvel of the grass and flowers (ok, we have weeds) but I started to marvel at just a single blade of grass and I noticed right away how complicated even a blade of grass is.  Then I started to see that this was the proof that I needed.  If a blade of grass can be so complicated and God made it, who am I to judge Him?  On anything?  Can I make this blade of grass?

So, yeah, I still don't get anything what happened but God told me that day in my heart that he is not shocked or taken aback by any of this.  He is not surprised.  And that I am to remain focused on him. One of this has screwed him over, like it has screwed me over.  He did not approve of it either.

I was telling God to prove himself and was giving me the proof plus comfort.  I can't explain it sorry. 

Initiating no contact with an engulfer is hard.  There just is no you.  When you are around them its like you don't exist anyway, so how could we have any say?  Who told you you had any say?

At this point I would like to talk a little about Stockholm's Syndrome.  This dynamic goes on, and it is when your mind is completely taken over and you can't see your abuse as abuse anymore.  It becomes normal.  

We think the abuser cares about us.  The abuser knows whats best for us.  While we are being abused we believe it is for the best.  That we are being taught a lesson we really need to learn.  For me, there was a spark of truth that remained throughout my life, and I think it was that, that helped me through to where I am now in my sanity.  I might look and seem very messed up, but I always had a good handle on things.  Maybe it was because mother always saying I was so smart.  But this was not for my benefit it was for hers.  As she bore this smart child, she takes all the credit.  I owed my life to her.

When I think of mother I always thought she was so obsessed about food.  Basic food, like meat and potatoes, to the point of her saying that it was good not to starve to death.  She always talked about starving to death, and this is interesting, because if she was in a "less civilized" society they would have left her to die and starve to death.  For not being a valued member of the tribe.  She wouldn't be a valued member of a tribe, no way.

I always wondered what happened to the soul of the engulfed child.  That is a horrible thing to think about even for me.  I always felt that God took care of me during the abuse.  He would hold onto my soul and made me feel safe.  Most people I think might lose themselves.  The soul might die and leave only the body.  A lot of these people are in institutions.  This is soul murder.

This is worse than taking a knife and killing someone.  It is slow torture.  The evil person doesn't care.  They'll take whatever they want.  But for us engulfed children, as we look at our engulfer we feel a measure of pity for them.  They gave us everything so why should we deny them the right to take over our soul?  And bury it?  They earned this right.

While that is going on we feel like they really care about us.  That underneath it all they really do care.  Afterall, we watched Little House on the Prairie when we were growing up.  I used to think that this was a great family to be.  Mary could be my sister, and I was Laura, and I actually pretended that my parents were the Ingalls, with Pa Ingalls knowing how to solve problems and guide us through childhood.  There was not much the children were going through that Ma and Pa wouldn't find out and fix.  Yes, my family is just like that.  Lets just pretend.  Years go by and I have convinced myself that we were.  Blocking out any bad stuff.  I believed we were just like the Ingalls family.  That's why my awakening came with such a blow.  I was living in dreamland.  "You mean we weren't just like the Ingalls?"

I think that it is a survival mechanism.  It actually felt good to be like the Ingalls.  And for years, it served its purpose.

The difficulty with going no contact remains for the engulfed child.  There will be no letters telling them we are done talking to them.  We won't call them out of the blue and tell them that either. In fact, if I ever met my mother on the street, I would have to hope she doesn't see me as I can't cope with the repercussions.  It is very scary.  I have even heard mother growl like a demon monster, and I think that it is the devil I am actually dealing with.  If you saw the devil on the street you wouldn't want to confront him either, you would run away.

Even other narcs that have come and gone from my life, if I see them again, I am afraid.  They seem to have the same hold on me.  I can't say, "get lost freak".  No way.  I don't know what I would do. New narcs?  I am still a little afraid, but not as much of them.  I can cope with them a little better. But I still feel that narcs are superior to me.  I am working on that.

No contact might be impossible.  It might only be a dream for the engulfed child.  While they are awake and aware and reading blogs in secret and writing blogs in secret, the shame they feel for remaining in contact with the narcissist, is huge.  The fear of getting found out is hard to cope with. When I was in contact with mother, I remember the seething pain.  She was trying to convince me I was dying, and told others that I had all these symptoms.  Others believed her of course, so I had a whole gamut of people cursing me to die.  Those were horrible times.

How does one heal while they are still in the vortex of their engulfer?  How do they get the strength and skills to even live?  I think that sometimes it might be better to hope that the MN mother will change.  Even though these ACONS do know better.  But it is a survival mechanism.  To stay alive. "Someday MN will change and I will have a happy life."  Don't get me wrong, this is not what these ACONs want or really believe, they still prefer to go no contact, but thinking that mother will change is an easier concept than no contact at this point

.  I hope I'm making sense.

And these are remarkable ACONS with just as much wisdom as any of the others.  I remember someone telling me that Sam Vaknin was an ACON.  But he is a narcissist?  How can this be?  I don't believe that a narcissist can ever be an ACON.  In my mind, an ACON is a survivor, that they came out of all that and still have their humanity.  I hold an ACON at a very high standard.  I don't even think I can call my siblings ACONs because if they were then they would be the people I can turn to, and I cannot.  Even though I don't think they are narcs, no, to me an ACON is way more than just simply what the acronym implies.

I wish there was a program in place where children of engulfing parents can access and escape. There is none, and any in the future is way, way into the future.  For now these "parents" own you with a callous thrust to the noggin.  Smakintosh said this is spiritual abuse, and I believe that with my whole heart.