dear Anita

to be honest , i dont know why replying to this particular post was hard for me , i almost cried when reading it , i had a mixed feeling of happiness and grief . i said before this is the end of an era . nothing is gonna like before , and im sad but hopeful in the same time . i loved my dad from early childhood , and he was the one who i believed loved me the most .i didnt even like my mom and didnt care for her till she got sick .  when she passed even grieving her was much more complicated , i don`t know why everything about her is so complicated .

 I think that your self-esteem is quite strong now because you were able- as a child and for long enough- to maintain this belief in him being the good guy, pushing his lies and sneaky behaviors away from your awareness. i learnt to love him despite i knew he was liar and back stabber but  i kept my distance  he had obviously a very bad effect in my romantic life that i couldn`t skip

 he was still the good/ perfect guy, so you maintained contact with the people who came with him…there was no reason to maintain these people once he was gone very well said . i feel relieved

to forgive him and to see him in the best light that was available to you. If you didn’t.. you wouldn’t turn out to be the strong woman that you are today. yes , exactly , in another way i got stronger because all the mess , he put me through directly or indirectly , i learnt to find my way and define myself a separate being which was totally neglected when my mom was still around . i read somewhere a few years ago that children who have a  life separated  from their parents are usually happier . in my culture living with your parents till you get married is common , so having a life for yourself usually means having your hobbies , friends and job so you are not completely dependent on your family financially and emotionally

i remember i was a happy kid when i was 7 to 11 , i  danced without any music all the time  , lol , and i didnt care about others opinion , i wasnt self conscious and it was glorious time , the other night i was checking my instagram explore and i watched teenage girl dancing very well and i remembered my self when i was so naive , joyful and blissfully ignorant and i wondered if i could  return to that time , of course its not possible but all the storm in my life and all the hardship now i trust myself much more than before and if thats not a cause of celebration , i dont know what it is ?we can be super cautious and scared of past experiences but i believe that couldnt help us , i was isolated and not really dealing with lots of people and i still got hurt .

farnaz

dear Anita

thank you very much for your note , it warmed my heart ,

to answer your question, well , thats hard . if you saw me in person , you would think , you can easily take advantage of me , not that you would .im laid back and dont talk too much except with people im comfortable with .but if somebody crosses me im assertive as hell , im gonna call them out , not all the times though , some people including my father and his brothers family , the infamous aunt i talked about , they were more subtle and at that time i wasnt aware i was taking advantage of , so i didnt react versus bullies like my mom , my sister ,  some classmates some of my colleagues were more open and wanted to intimidate me , then storm was gonna follow . i know im strong person , and that pissed off a lot of people including my dad but sometimes i was mistreated because of my strength , maybe they wanted the challenge to break me even harder or i was abandonned for my step mother for example because he knew i could handle mistreatment and i`m strong or foolish ?? enough to forgive him but she was gonna hurt herself or him because she was gonna have a total meltdown .

Did you change that much? yes i did , a lot . i have now zero tolerance for others bs , thats why i cut ties with lots of people and i have no regrets .

Farnaz

dear Anita

yes , it does . and i can relate to it a lot .  i was and am , much less than before , lived in my head until recently i realized nothing would happen or change if i don`t Do anything ,  i believe the less we think the more we are happy.

like you, another thing i  realized that i didnt pay attention to my surrounding , as i was living in my head  i didnt  care about being organized , i didnt care about who im spending  time with , as the title of my post , i was surrounded with bitter people and not nice ones and i didnt care for it for such a long time , because in my life it was only me who could help me . although its true and after all , you are the one who should pick yourself up when you are down , but being in contact with people who dont want your best interests doesnt help .and i got used to it , that became a normal. But  you want to be around with positive people who can at least keep your spirit up , i underestimated the role of others in my happiness or misery a a lot and i paid for it dearly .

dear Anita

our conversations affect me positively and the shame within me is a little less im happy to hear it. there are  few people who can understand these family dynamics , not that its uncommon but its so painful to see it for what it is than they choose to close their eyes and numb themselves and im glad i found someone to share it.

 I was hurt and very disturbed by her behaviors, but no one ever said anything about it except three times in my case nobody saw anything wrong specially about my mom except my family members , my dad and my sister specially . my dads story was different , he was aloof and arrogant and pissed off a few people , but no body told me he is bad news either, i learned it by myself . as you wrote your note 2 days ago he would do what was easy and convenient for him , when he got married , her wife was and is always a drama queen  and in dividing  people , and he accompanied her , because of fear and i believe he was enjoying it too .that was undeniable that he was not a good guy after a while , i was very depressed and was taking like 8 tablets per day for anxiety ,depression and anger outburst in few years after my moms death and i couldnt discern between him being a jerk  or me exaggerating what i was experiencing  i coulnt rust myself and he used it . but when he got married , from not telling me and further problems we had ,it was obvious for me that he was  a bad father . to be honest i wouldnt care for her wife , she was as i said a fifty some thing , that time, who was competing me , she was a low life in my opinion , not anything going on in her life based on what she was fighting about , but my dad was making  her such a big person to hurt me and put me down maybe because i wasnt a good wife figure for him  when i learnt about my dads disorder , i learnt to react to it much better , i also had a studio downstairs so i could live without dealing with them all the time when i came back from university . if i didnt have that independence these 2 would make me crazy , im sure about it . her idea of good life is me being inferior to her and serving her and make my father  insult me in front her .and he was more than willing to do it . when he got sick , she basically mentally checked out my brother and i was taking care of him and his wife was going out with her family , in that time her brothers was visiting , she didnt even cook anything for my dad because he had no appetite , im serious . well i think they deserved each other . one i moved out from my childhood flat 2 weeks ago , she tried to contact me and get me to invite her over to stay with me , she mentioned it indirectly a few times but for what  i learnt about her she can be so demanding and delusional to actually expect me to that for her . she is scared alone , im so worried about her , lol .

one thing about her that i hated was some people who knew about our relationship basically used it against me , maybe they didnt believe what she was doing because she should herself as a very loving person , very innocent and quiet , but they not only didnt believe me , they wanted to make it clear that they dont , including the aunt i talked about very posts older , the one who wanted to fix me with a very low class guy, my brother didnt also care until now that he is in the receiving end of her nastiness , i was so tired to have her in my life even when she is not physically and others used her as a weapon , so i cut ties with all these people , and i blocked her number too .

congratulations for educating yourself and making it difficult or impossible for him to successfully inflict his mind games on you. Indeed, Knowledge is Power yes exactly and thank you

i hope it wasn`t too long for you and i would be happy to hear your insights too .

farnaz

Dear Anita

we are both adults who are trying to understand each other (that’s more than a lot of people have available to them , i totally agree with you , and i`m so happy to talk to you about our experiences, it certainly changed how i feel about the past experiences in positive way , not that i see them positive but as they are minus blaming myself for every thing , i hope our conversations also affect you positively .  obviously shame is still present but less intense.

After leaving her apartment and her brand of hospitality, he told me:  “your mother f***  your brain was he mad at you because of your mother or was telling you , your mother is crazy because how she treated him?

what i understand from what you shared is maybe you werent aware of your moms mistreatment that time and that was shocking for you that somebody realized that so quickly , she wasnt shy about showing her colors to him , and the situation must be embarrassing for you , obviously . im so sorry.

my mother inserted her hand into my brain and messing it up, stirring and disturbing my brain matter. Literally she did that in all kinds of ways, one was that whatever I expressed (however logical, however sensible, however honest, however TRUE) thats the worst kind of mind f******, thats brutal and some people may never trust themselves again , and that`s the purpose of this behavior , my parents especially my dad did this and another nasty things liking gaslighting , withholding information , divide and conquer and ect …

i` m curius about how you realized your mother is hurting you on purpose ??would you like to share it?

me personally , i realized my dad had a personality disorder , most likely narcissism , not long ago , maybe 7 or 8 years , it was when i was abroad and i had a phone call from him , actually i dont remember what was the problem , it was 2 or months after i left home and i didnt have any contact with him  because of all drama his wife caused me and he was a willing participant , i was care free and relaxed for a while , after our conversation i was broke and miserable , and i literally typed why some people want to hurt you  intentionally  in google and then i found out about narcissism , i studied a lot about that and that was very helpful , after returning back months later i was prepared , and my dad sensed it , he was upset because he couldnt play mind games to me like before , and that made him to do worse to hurt me , i wouldnt survive if i didnt know about their tactics , its true that knowledge is power .

farnaz

Dear Anita

I thought that maybe you’ll stop posting because it (the reference)  would be too much for you.no , no , no , i admit that was disturbing for me , but im sorry for you , because you were in receiving end . she is the one to shame and im sure she doesnt see anything wrong with it , as my parents didnt .

 reads to me that he thought that if he expressed favoritism toward you, giving you this “gift” of favor, you will owe him a gift- or a favor- in return: paying attention to him exclusively (no 0ther man in your life), and competing with his wife for his affection (an ego boost for him). yes , i think you are right , and he supported me much longer than my other siblings , i felt like he meant you don`t need any man , and no men would do stuff i do for you , disgusting .

 His wife punished him for favoring you, so he feared her, and did what he thought he should do to please her the funny things about his wife was that she also think only about herself , she is a 12 years old in body of a sixty something woman , she was and is always comparing me with herself always competing always wanted to drag me down , im sure my dad had something to do with the jealousy , he was a master in mind f*****and im sure he played her insecurities and made her feel even worse , i believe if she was a better supply for him he wouldn`t bother to keep me around that long ,i think that would be better for me though .

sorry if i cursed in this post

have a good night sleep

farnaz

Dear Anita

the sentiment.. from a mother, it is too vulgar, too wrong. I never brought it up to her, never asked her about these words. I don’t quite understand. May i say ?this was disturbing. how she even see about situation  this way ?and she dared to say that ?

i dont understand it either , i dont know what to say .

maybe that s good you dont understand it .

what is rather interesting for me is that although their image is very important for them , how we their children see them couldnt be less valuable . they didnt hold back hurting us , i believe first they didn`t see as human and second we were their hostage , we had no choice , this is maddening .

I never shared this here. And in my mind, you will not want to talk to me anymore because of these words . thank you  very much for sharing it to me , i`m not sure the last part though?

far