The surprising result of becoming who they told me I was

Hello all. Thank you for being here, and supporting this community. Those of us who grew up in a dysfunctional family environment are already so disadvantaged in terms of social development. I can only speak from my personal experience, but I have found that people who haven't been through it can be unsympathetic. The chilling effect that results is not only an additional burden of anxiety, but also tends to reinforce the programming that has taken decades trying to unravel. To have a place where we can share our courageous stories and create those social bonds we were deprived of, however small, is a treasure for which I am deeply grateful.

My story probably isn't typical. I wasn't anything like my family, and the more I would prove to be a normal, healthy, happy child...the more my mother would seek to prevent it. Her image of me was completely based on her unreasonable hatred toward my father, who she resented for paying less attention to her after I was born. They divorced when I was very young, and once my usefulness as a weapon against my father wained, my mother had no use for me. I was "defective" because I was the spawn of the man who dared to criticize her for being a manipulative and selfish person.

It began slowly at first. The doctors said I was an extremely happy, healthy baby? Mom tells everyone I'm mentally handicapped and she's constantly having to rush me to the ER. It's easier to enforce with the outside world when a child doesn't begin speaking until 4. I was autistic in a time when autism was heavily stigmatized and rarely diagnosed. Rather than getting me actual care, my mother insisted that they put me on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs from age 5. The doctors didn't blink an eye, because my grandmother was a nurse and would coach her on what my "symptoms" were so they could get the right meds to make me a "normal" kid.

The more I excelled in school, the more she was determined to prevent me from having any semblance of a positive self-image. She loved the praise from my teachers, because they assumed she was responsible. Meanwhile, she was actively trying to hurt my development, and the praise inevitably enraged her. I was stupid, I was defective, I was just like my father. She never saw me as a person, as an individual. She still doesn't.

Going through my childhood would take around 40 chapters, but suffice it to say, I finally broke at age 13 after hearing some particularly devastating news and realizing my mom was a liar. To my shame, I played into their narrative. I became exactly the child they told everyone I was. I started smoking, doing drugs, listening to extreme music, skipping school, and getting involved in some pretty dark occult stuff. If I was going to be a bad kid, by God, I was going to do it right.

Instantly, my entire life changed. My behavior changes were abrupt and dramatic. I started defying them and turning the tables on them. My mom and stepdad both looked like deer in headlights. Rather than seeking me out at every opportunity, they started avoiding me. When I did see them, they would speak to me calmly like an adult. The guilt trips, shame, and ridicule stopped. They didn't know what to do. They couldn't very well damage their social cred by throwing their son out for bad behavior, when they had been crying wolf about the same behavior for years. Putting me up for adoption would force them to face the fact that they failed me as parents, and they would risk the same stigma from their social group.

They very well couldn't get me the psychological help that I needed, because I was old enough to tell the truth, although they took solace in the fact that I was still scared shitless enough of them to stay quiet. So, we settled into an uneasy truce. They immediately cashed out my college bonds, because who doesn't when their teenager has a mental health crisis, amirite? And I enjoyed my newfound freedom. They encouraged me to drop out of school and get a job when I was nearly 16, which I did. I still regret that decision.

It wasn't until I became a parent that I realized how screwed up it all was.