Bat shit crazy — in emojis. Written by a 12-year-old boy? Nope.
This was a response to a group text from my 60-something brother not long ago — a text thread that I was part of, and yet he addresses me in the third person, dismissing me and publicly labeling me as crazy — dehumanizing me to protect his own ego.
How starved you must have been that my heart became a meal for your ego. — Amanda Torroni
The text from my big brother was the last straw for me. No contact was the only solution. I had tried to heal our conflicts like adults, but he has proven himself incapable of adulting — typical of bullies who never outgrow their abusive behavior.
C is the same big brother who terrorized me as a child, the same big brother who would relentlessly bully but never leave a mark, the same big brother who would smile sweetly to my mother as he repeated her own favorite refrain, “I was just joking.”, the same big brother who had been mercilessly bullied by our even older brothers — forced as a child to run around the house in his underwear in the middle of the winter. Funny, no?
Even as an adult I was nervous around C, especially if we were near a body of water — the terrifying flashbacks of him dunking me are seared into my memory. His bullying was horrible, but the lack of protection by my parents and older siblings was far worse.
We were a family of jokers. We all teased each other relentlessly — it went well beyond the sweet fun and games of childhood, and yet it was all we knew. It felt like love. It felt like kinship. It felt like belonging.
It was messed up. It’s left a mark on all of us — addiction, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and bullying run rampant in our generation and the next.
Parents who program children to bully or to look the other way, pass the bullying on to future generations. C’s son and older daughter are also Charming Bullies and show all the signs of continuing the legacy — you can’t fix what you don’t admit is a problem. Everyone loses in the end.
My 6 older siblings and I had learned our bullying behavior from a pro. My kind, but terribly codependent father, was no match for the charisma of my Charming Bully of a mother. She controlled all. Nobody dared to stand up to her — punishment didn’t come in a slap, but in a humiliating comeback served with a smile.
As the youngest of her brood, “The Mistake” — as I was called, I learned to stay small, and nice, and cute, and silent. People-pleasing and overachieving became my primary means of survival. If I stayed small and cute and perfect, then maybe they wouldn’t hurt me.
“… guilt is a feeling that you made a mistake, while shame is the feeling that you are a mistake.”
If only someone, anyone, had stood up for me when I was an innocent child, I probably never would have gone bat shit crazy.
I played by their rules for as long as I possibly could.
We were raised in an atmosphere of shame and judgment. Boundaries were non-existent. Empathy and gratitude were in short supply. Conflict was pushed under the rug. Feelings were ignored and denied. We were programmed to deny and repress. We put on our armor and became great little actors. We learned to be proficient at pretending that “everything is fine”.
But everything was far from fine.
Shame begets bullying and bullying begets shame. It’s a vicious cycle that is hard to escape when it’s so normalized in our society. As children we either follow the lead of those in power and become bullies ourselves (toxic/fight flying monkeys) or we worship the bullies and lose our sense of Self as we become more and more codependent to the bullies in our lives (naive/clueless flying monkeys).
A very small number of us are lucky enough to escape the vicious cycle, but always at enormous cost. Once we dare to stand up for ourselves — or are forced to defend ourselves by circumstance, we are seen as crazy, Scapegoated, and end up as the Identified Patient in the family — even though we are actually the most sane.
A significant psychiatric crisis (aka breakdown, aka spiritual awakening) at the start of the pandemic was my ticket though the crazy and into the light.
55 years of bullying, from my family, from romantic relationships, from “friends”, from bosses, from therapists, from meditation gurus, from teachers, from society… finally took it its toll. I couldn’t take it any longer. All the rage that had been bottled up for decades came flooding out in an episode of terrifying mania.
I was (mis) diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (r/o Borderline Personality Disorder) in the summer of 2020. It’s been a rough journey through insanity and back, but the hard work has paid off. I have re-diagnosed myself with Complex-PTSD. I’ve reclaimed my life by learning about my disorder, reparenting myself, and understanding healthy boundaries (self-protection, fierce self-compassion, healthy narcissism).
Unfortunately, learning to stand up for myself led to even more severe scapegoating abuse.
Bullies don’t like boundaries.
Before my breakdown, I knew nothing of boundaries. I didn’t realize I needed them. I had no idea how unsafe I was in my seemingly functional family. It was all I knew. I thought their behavior was “normal.” I thought my family was loving. I thought society was mostly kind. I had mostly happy memories… until the house of cards came tumbling down.
During my manic episode in 2020 I lost my entire family except for my own daughter, a few nieces and nephews and a couple of cousins. As a started to recover, I was able to make tentative repairs with my mother, two of my sisters and a brother who was married to “one of my best friends.”
For the past two years, I’ve been able to maintain superficial contact with my 94-year-old mother, mostly because I feel sorry for her. I also thought things were mostly good with my sisters, my brother and my sister-in-law/friend, but that all changed a few weeks ago.
Ironically (or not), the trigger for the final discard (what narcissists do when you no longer serve any purpose for them) was a conversation about Bill Clinton, The Charming-Bully-In-Chief. Fueled by a glass of wine (and the support from my brother and sister), my sister-in-law (former friend) took it to a whole new level of vitriol when she started yelling personal attacks at me — ending with “I don’t even want to invite you over any more!”
Needless to say, I left. I doubt I’ll ever be invited back. I realized that night that I’d lost my fourth and final brother to yet another woman much like my mother (all four of my brothers married Charming Bullies). This one stings quite a bit more than the others since I had introduced this brother to his bully.
In the aftermath, I tried to get my two sisters to understand my pain. I think they really tried for empathy, but ultimately, they turned on me as well. Standing up for me was just too risky for them. Excluding me from a sisters get-together was a clear message that I was no longer “one of them.”
The Scapegoating is complete. There’s a great deal of grief, but also some relief. I think I’d seen this coming for a long time. In some ways it’s good that the final discard was so extreme. It’s the same kind of relief I felt when my abusive second husband walked out on me — almost three years ago today! Now that it’s done, I can begin healing in earnest. Fortunately, after three years of very hard work, this wound will be a relatively easy one to manage.
Thank you Protector Parts, especially the Badass. Fierce self-compassion (healthy narcissism) is my superpower.
